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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Cshanesimpson (talk | contribs) at 22:53, 11 December 2014 (→‎Revoke course instructor right). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

    Welcome to the education noticeboard
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    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.

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    Sandboxes are a disaster

    What is the Education foundations position on the use of sandboxes? I find them to be a disaster. We basically end up with students written content and than repeatedly trying to copy and paste it into place at the end of their assignment such as here [1] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:01, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi Doc James, our official position is that sandboxes are tricky. :) We offer instructors pros and cons of working in sandboxes and let them choose (see page 7, week 6 of the syllabus brochure for the text, or see it in action in our new Assignment Design Wizard). In that particular case, though, I'd say the sandbox is somewhat orthogonal to the real problem, which is that the student hasn't gone through training on MEDRS and seems to be under the impression that he or she will only be graded on what's in the livespace, not what's in the sandbox, both of which run counter to Wiki Ed's recommendations (we don't have any record of that student participating in our program). Since thanks to Bluerasberry we now have a handout specifically for students to edit medicine articles as mentioned above, hopefully you and other med editors can direct students you stumble across who aren't in our program to consult that resource. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:58, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes and will also work to improve the wording of that handout. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:02, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm noticing much the same things as Doc James, and I share his concerns. At #Checking on a class, I pointed to a class from Clemson that does not have a course page. I'm now seeing edits by students from that class showing up on a lot of neuroscience pages, and it's very much a matter of the students plopping down a copy of the sandbox draft, then leaving a note on the talk page (in which they refer to the instructor's user name, except that no such user account exists here), and then apparently checking out. I've left the student-welcome template on their talk pages, but I don't think they have looked back and seen it, and the only way to communicate with the instructor is to track them down off-Wiki. On the plus side, the students have made some helpful expansions of some pages, but on the down side, their edits have also had a lot of mistakes, and it's burdensome on me to have to see these edits show up all at once and then have to consider correcting them myself. The abrupt copying from sandboxes exacerbates the problem. One solution might be for students to post on the article talk pages before they start their sandbox work, with a link to the sandbox, so interested editors could give feedback before everything gets plopped into mainspace. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:20, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    For the UCSF project we had all students edit live and it worked better. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:07, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Prof NeuroJoe

    The Education Program should be dealing with this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:59, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    See WikiProject Medicine. I pinged Ian (Wiki Ed) there. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:27, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I have sent him an email and will try to follow up. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:44, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    No response. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:57, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Doc James I got some news. This person is attending to an unexpected personal matter and may not be available to engage Wikipedia right now, but I understand that next term this person might revisit Wikipedia. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:00, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks Blue. Hopefully they will engage with the community more first. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:33, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Student editors

    Would the ambassador responsible for Adaar117 and Theodoramakris please supervise your students? It looks like they could use your help. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:16, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    @Debaser42: @ProfDRS: It looks like this is your issue to clean up. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:32, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks - I've contacted the students. Apparently they forgot how to cite properly. Additionally there was some confusion about hitting the review button, which they weren't supposed to do. Sorry it took me a few days I was stuck in airports. Debaser42 (talk) 16:14, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Student welcome templates

    I just made a pair of bold edits to Template:Welcome student and Template:Welcome medical student, and I'm posting here in case anyone else wants to review what I did: [2], [3]. My thinking is that we keep having problems with "stealth" classes where the instructor does not create a course page and is difficult to contact, and so maybe we can get help from the students when that happens. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:51, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I think we should go further and ask for a bot to add Template:Welcome student to all enrolled students. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:48, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, and I like that idea. As I see it, however, the biggest problem is with student editors who are clearly student editors but who are not enrolled, because the instructor is not working with the Education Program. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:15, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Students are writing their content in word

    And then simply dropping it into an article without actually reading the existing content. This is unfortunate and is wasting everyones time. Examples include here were they drop it into their sandbox and than onto the main article a couple of min latter [4]

    Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:56, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Right. And who's bright idea was Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure? I may be dumber than the average bear, but it took me weeks, if not months, to find my way around Wikipedia. And I wasn't dropping content into GAs and FAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:48, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The Wikipedia Adventure may need to be make much more difficult. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:33, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Between this, and sandboxes generally, there's an emerging problem of students, and educational institutions, incorrectly seeing Wikipedia as the place to publish your term paper on the web. Dumping text here isn't the same thing as editing, and it's getting to be an issue of WP:What Wikipedia is not. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:18, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    SandyGeorgia, The Wikipedia Adventure (TWA) was a result of an m:IEG (Individual Engagement Grant) given by the WMF to User:Ocaasi (Jake), who also runs WP:The Wikipedia Library, which is now an official WMF program. Congrats on that Jake, by the way. I'm not sure if Jake is planning on making many more big changes to TWA, but I think I recently saw him help with a bug fix. Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:21, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Let me just begin by saying that I am sorry to read about the mess documented on this page! That said, I certainly hope there is some way to move forward such that YES, undergrad students can write their term papers onwiki, and YES, they can first spellcheck them in Word first before dropping them into wikipages. The idea is fantastic if you consider the deplorable quality of most students' undergrad term papers today. Remember, undergrad students are not allowed to do original research, but are encouraged to produce papers based on established sources that reflect their understanding of scientific method. The reason they produce boloney is because the only people reading their work today are a couple of teaching assistants and/or professors. The culture of student classes will not change overnight, but I am very happy to see them moving in a direction in which students' work can be read and appreciated by millions. Can we somehow harness the power of the new DRAFT workspace for this, and then try to get other students to do peer review? Maybe some rule of thumb in which at least three students from the same class have seen the edits before they can be moved into mainspace? I am against putting more burden on our existing community of editors, but would really like to see responsible classrooms be given the opportunity to be self-supporting. Jane (talk) 10:01, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Name

    Kelee Pacion

    Institution

    Cornell University

    Course title and description

    Writing for Wikipedia: contribute to the World’s understanding of biology.

    If I ask you a biology related question, where do you go to find the answer? Nearly 500 million people check Wikipedia every month to look for answers, explanations and definitions! The general population might use Wikipedia to make decisions regarding health, informing their personal beliefs, and potentially influence life choices. Did you ever wonder whether that information is accurate? This course is co-taught by Kelee Lynn Pacion from Mann library and Mark A. Sarvary from Investigative Biology, to offer you a unique opportunity to enhance your scientific literary and become an expert in a biology topic of your interest. You will write and edit biology related Wikipedia entries and use Wikipedia as a learning tool to develop stronger critical thinking and information literacy skills. According to Wikipedia, “wikipedians are people who write and edit the pages for Wikipedia”. Would you like to become a wikipedian? If your answer is yes, sign up for this course.

    Number of students

    18

    Start and end dates

    January 21, 2015 to May 6, 2015

    @OhanaUnited, Neelix, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Saguaromelee (talk) 17:08, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Hello Saguaromelee. I am curious what kind of Wikipedia contributions would be required as part of this course. Also, I see from your user page that you are a librarian. Are you the instructor responsible for assigning and grading Wikipedia contributions? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:17, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I am co-teaching with a Cornell Faculty member, we will be sharing the grading and assignment responsibilities. Our first goal will be to train the students in the proper techniques for editing Wikipedia articles- starting with the tutorial, adding credible sources to existing articles, and culminating with an expansion of a stub that will be located via the wiki projects pages- most likely in the area of the life sciences. We will follow the appropriate style guide for whichever project is hosting the specific stub. --Saguaromelee (talk) 17:22, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Welcome Saguaromelee, and thanks for the reply. Would you please inform us as to who the instructor is that is co-responsible for assigning the project and grading it? Do you know if they have a Wikipedia user account that they plan on using? I saw your contribution to the article herb farm. I see you have some knowledge about how to cite references on Wikipedia. Have you had any help with this from anyone? I noticed you used <ref>encyclopedia</ref> as one of your references, which isn't exactly helpful to readers. =) It currently shows readers "encyclopedia" when they currently look at the reference list (#6). Perhaps you were trying to figure out how to use the wp:refname function? What were you trying to cite there? I also noticed several other things that could be improved with your contribution. Do you have currently have anyone that helps you learn more about Wikipedia? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:40, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Biosthmors. I'm not involved with the Education project, but I am a long-time editor and admin who has helped Saguaromelee learn how to edit and negotiate Wikipedia. I am her spouse, so I will be available in person to continue mentoring and to assist in any issues that emerge. The herb farm article was a test run so she could go through the process of gathering sources, drafting, formatting, and moving into article space. I believe the rogue tag you reference was a mis-click resulting from using the Insert Citation tool. If you click Insert Citation > encyclopedia and don't do anything else, that's what it inserts. We just missed it when we moved the text over. Anyway, I'm confident in her abilities at this point, and I will be available to coach as needed. The Cornell faculty member does not have a Wikipedia account yet, but if he decides to create one we will make sure he is appropriately introduced and mentored as needed. Saguaromelee should be considered the primary point person for the on-wiki activities. --Spike Wilbury (talk) 22:54, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I emailed this person offering an online tour of Wikipedia and perhaps even a campus visit, as I am not so far away and because I am interested in the class subject material. Saguaromelee, I would love to assist. I hope that we can talk soon. Biosthmors, thanks also for your review and interest. If it can work out, I would love for us to be able to talk together. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:31, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Saguaromelee: I reviewed your course draft, and it looks good. I went ahead and granted you course instructor rights. I will be following up with more information about the Wiki Education Foundation and how we can support your Wikipedia assignment. In the meantime, it would be a good idea for your co-instructor, who I will also get in touch with, to set up a username on Wikipedia. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 03:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I think we need some more discussion here User:Helaine (Wiki Ed). I have some concerns with the course draft:

    1. We have recently had a lot of issues with students plagiarizing. While I see you are including information about the topic. What if it does happen, what measures are in place to detect it and who is going to clean up issues?
    2. What counts as a high quality source for healthcare information? WP:MEDRS After explaining this to the students who will check that they are using high quality sources? And who will remove the content if it isn't support by high quality sources?
    3. What sort of measures do you have in place to make sure that the students know how to format a reference before they start editing in mainspace? WP:MEDHOW Do you include instructions on our manual of style?
    4. I am concerned about the moving from the sandbox into mainspace. Is the proposal to have the student copy and paste what they have written into main space? Who is deciding if it is ready? Is anyone checking to see if the article already covers the content they are adding? We have recently had a lot of students write content in their sandbox that was already in the article resulting in duplication of content. This of course decreases the quality of Wikipedia.

    Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi Doc James, as I mentioned above, I am a long-time editor and admin making myself available in-person to assist with this course. I'll be consulting with Kelee today about the questions posted here, but in the mean time:
    1. I have worked in WP:CP extensively in the past and will be available to address any problems that arise here.
    2. I seriously doubt any of these students will end up choosing medical articles (this is a general biology class) but I have already coached Kelee in WP:MEDRS and the community focus on high-quality sources. I will be watchlisting and monitoring each article the students touch.
    3. Reference formatting is covered as part of the Online training for students (week two). Again, I will be monitoring and helping correct errors.
    4. Again, I will be helping with the process. The intent of week six-seven is to focus on stubs, but we will ensure they aren't duplicating content.
    --Spike Wilbury (talk) 12:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Nor am I an Education Program member, but this is a proposed biology course, and because of the significant bad impact seen from student editing in the biomedical realm, I have additional concerns about your proposed course page.
    1. In week two, you have one talk page post. In general, student projects fail because the students never learn to use article talk and user talk to communicate with other editors and reach consensus. Would you be willing to have two full weeks of significant article and talk page engagement?
    2. In week three, you have students choosing articles. In general, student editing fails because of poor article choice, and no notification to established editors or discussion with established editors of proposed sources. Would you be willing to alter your design to have at least two weeks of students engaging on article talk, with at least five posts discussing sources, before deciding on a topic?
    3. In week four, you have students commenting on existing articles. In general, those kinds of posts are a drain on established editors, as the students rarely have the knowledge so early in the game to be offering any commentary, yet established editors see those posts on their watchlists, which means they have to click to read something that may not be useful. Would you be willing to eliminate that step entirely, and instead, encourage students to spend extra weeks and more posts actually engaging in discussion of proposed sources with established editors on article talk?
    4. In week five, you have students selecting an article, but you do not have them posting notification to that article talk page (or alternately, a Wikiproject page for a new article). So, many students find their work reverted because of poor article choice.
    5. In week six, you have students compiling sources. That should have been done before they selected an article, and in consultation with other editors on article talk. Many problems can be avoided if students choose adequate sources before locking in on a subject. Would you be willing to alter the order in your course design?
    6. Then you talk about etiquette? That should have been in week one. Students should learn about plagiarism, copyvio, edit warring, how to sign their talk page posts ... all in the first weeks.
    7. Then you have articles moving out of sandbox. Only if the sandbox is first posted to talk, or to a relevant WikiProject, and based on discussion with other editors. Would you be willing to agree that your students will not move articles out of sandbox without first posting to article talk?
    In short, the course designs that have been put forward frequently on this page have been inadequate, resulting in frustration for students and other editors here, and no meaningful content work. There are many ways you can make your students' editing experience less frustrating for them (and for us), and the typical course design advanced by the Education Program is not it.
    Are you intending to be an engaged, available, on-Wikipedia professor? Will other editors be able to reach you on your Wikipedia talk page, will you monitor it daily, and will you log on to watchlist and follow your students' edits? Will you maintain a list of your students, and the articles they edit, on Wikipedia so other editors can monitor and assist?
    Unless the traditional course design is modified, I believe it is time for the Education Program to refrain from bringing more students into this program, where the experience will be frustrating for all. As a regular editor dealing with many problematic student edits in the biomedical realm, I would not want to see an approval for this course design, as it is unlikely to result in a positive experience for either the students or other editors. Modifications suggested to result in a better experience for all. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:11, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I strongly agree with User:SandyGeorgia, particularly point 5 - collect your sources and verify the quality/acceptability before writing even one word of article or draft content. I also highly recommend that students interact properly with relevant WikiProjects, from even before they start writing content and continue to do so throught the entire process. Project members are valuable "second opinions" and can also help with quality control and source verification. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I would like to say thank you for your comments and suggestions, and they will be considered accordingly. It is my intent that the students engage with Wikipedia in a positive manner that is appropriate. This means I will be working with members of the education portal, ensuring the students follow the style guide for the Wikiproject that houses their articles, and engaging with members of projects as well. In addition, Cornell has a plagiarism tutorial that should help to address some of the common issues with plagiarism, and I have recruited a second librarian to help with the monitoring of the course. Concerns and comments about the curriculum design will be taken into consideration as we develop the course for our students. Again, thank you. --Saguaromelee (talk) 21:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And thanks for the kind response. As a matter of record, I will be opposing instructor rights for any courses that don't show a course design that a) encourages adequate engagement of students on talk pages, and b) identification of sources, before they choose topics and start writing content; and c) courses with a design where students will be moving content into mainspace from sandbox without first notifying article talk or relevant Wikiprojects. I hope you find the steps I've laid out helpful, and I hope you'll be enacting them. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:39, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    SandyGeorgia, I am working with the instructors on campus and have discussed your comments. Regarding b, Week 4 has the students doing scholarly research and compiling a short list of articles. Week 5 has them finalizing their selection and building a bibliography. This is a normal academic process for researching and writing. Regarding c, see Week 6: "If you are improving an existing article, create a detailed outline reflecting the content the article will have after it's been improved, and post this along with a brief description of your plans on the article’s talk page." This should provide plenty of a heads-up for anyone who's involved with the article before any content is added to mainspace. As I mentioned to Doc James, I will be making myself available on a daily basis to the instructors and will be monitoring their edits. --Spike Wilbury (talk) 22:30, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Revoke course instructor right

    This course has over 100 students, and neither the prof nor the students filled out their course page, so we don't have a list of which articles they have edited. Students were not instructed in talk page use, and article talk pages were not tagged.

    This prof took a course in Wikipedia training after initiating a course on Wikipedia

    This prof (and apparently her students) learned to edit Wikipedia from the apparently wholly inadequate WP:TWA (will that be discontinued?)

    Will this professor be required to fill out the Fall 2014 course page, so we know all articles edited and can review them? Or, alternately, if the professor does not do that, will the Education Program staff be compiling that list by going through the students' contribs?

    Will this professor's instructor's rights be removed, or will the course design be modified? Hundreds of students affecting dozens of articles next term should not continue as it did this term. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:55, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Wow. I didn't see that class :-(
    • User:GasparJohn added plagiarism in this edit [5] Dec 3, 2014 from this CC NC paper from [6] it is still in the article a week latter.
    And that didn't take long to find. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:20, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Unfortunately revoking the right does little but make them harder to track. If action is needed, it's going to either need to be a class massblock or massrollback, but of which I would support if the situation is bad enough. Kevin Gorman (talk) 06:31, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm with User talk:Kevin Gorman on this. They should be treated like any other group to people who're misusing wikipedia for their own ends. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:41, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    What is the position of these

    • User:Psych150wiki adds with quotes in place "Twenty-one men receiving ADT for metastatic prostate cancer underwent a qualitative interview focusing on the adverse effects of ADT and the impact of these symptoms on daily living and coping strategies. Results: The most frequently mentioned adverse effects were hot flashes and night sweats, gynecomastia, cognitive decline, and changes in sexual function. Hot flashes did impact on everyday functioning, and night sweats regularly disturbed sleep patterns and led to participants feeling tired and irritable. Participants reported a lack of control over their hot flashes and night sweats. There was reluctance among our sample to disclose the type of symptoms experienced to others. Conclusion: The occurrence of andropause symptoms, including hot flashes and night sweats, was common among this sample. Participants reported a range of cognitive and behavioral responses to these symptoms."[12]

    A bunch of students have done this. User:Moonriddengirl from here Wikipedia:Non-free content I understand this is not allowed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:42, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    • Hi, User:Doc James. This is a problem, although I personally consider of a different factor than copy-pasting without quotation marks. In this case, we most likely have somebody who is in all good faith intending to do the right thing. Inexperienced writers often do this - instead of paraphrasing content properly and using limited quotations to support their work, they see useful information and copy it from their sources. You see it a lot in lowerclassmen. It is a copyright problem, particularly as it becomes extensive, and people have been blocked for this kind of thing, although I'm happy to say that's pretty rare. Generally, this is a matter of education - I'm fond of this handout from Purdue University and the related handout on paraphrasing. The point to emphasize there is that quotations should be used sparingly; the bulk of our contributions should be in our own words. A lot of naive writers are frustrated by our inability to give them a word count, which is understandable. It would be lovely if we could. :/ Depending on how extensive the issue is, I will sometimes simply flag an article Template:Non-free and explain the problem on the talk page. If a significant portion of the article is made up of such content, reversion or immediate trimming may be best. Rarely, if there is no clean version, pages are blanked with Template:Copyvio. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Doc, with respect to the edit from User:Psych150wiki, quoting extensively from an article abstract is a possible tipoff to a bigger problem. It's possible the student did not have access to the full-text of the journal article, and is inserting text based only on an abstract, which is rarely a good thing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've also noticed edits related to this course that are sloppy to the point of vandalism here [13] and here [14]. It looks to me like they're getting graded based on words changed or something, as one of the students, User:Ziggapedia92, seems to have gone through Neurotransmitter and replaced random words with synonyms from a thesaurus. While most of these edits just make the article unclear, most are far worse, such as replacing the medical condition "depression" with "down in the dumps", changing "certain types of neurotransmitters" to "convinced types of neurotransmitters" (while "convinced" could be a synonym for one meaning of "certain", it's not a synonym for that meaning), changing "little or no effect" to "petite or no end product", and generally making a perfectly good article read like a bad Google Translate translation. --166.20.224.12 (talk) 18:21, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    To address the concerns of the community, I apologize for any sloppy edits that were made as my students ended the semester. At this point, the Wikipedia assignment portion of the course has ended. Even with consistent supports put in place via in-class workshops, hand-out's, etc., some of my students veered from the course assignment. They were not graded on word count, nor were they even graded on whether their revisions (coming out of shared, in-class editing documents) "stuck" on Wikipedia. Please be advised that I am working closely with members of the Wiki Education Foundation to amend these issues, but will continue to monitor student pages in an effort to clean-up these problems. As a result of those major issues this semester, I do not plan to teach my course with a Wikipedia assignment in a class of this size and will likely not be using Wikipedia (for coursework) again for another 2 years. On a side note, professors often attend workshops held at the university to support training of new editors on Wikipedia. This is not meant to train us, but to support further development of the online community.Cshanesimpson (talk) 22:53, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Support rollback

    Based on the evidence I propose we roll back all the edits from this class. There is too much "copy and pasting". I have seen a ton of primary sourced used. There are large quoted blocks of text. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:43, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Oppose

    • Oppose With approx. 5 diffs, I don't think it has been adequately laid out that this is necessary . There are other options to solve the problem. (Tell the students to fix it themselves and tag their copyvios for deletion themselves, for example). You would be reverting many, many good edits.--Melody Lavender 15:41, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • The course is over, students are not going to be fixing their edits. In spite of years requesting evidence, there has never yet been presented to me an example of students staying around after term-end. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:43, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I worked with a small group in a class a few years back, and one of them stuck around as an occasional editor for about six months afterwards (in the same account: if they edit logged-out or in a new account, it's impossible to track them).
        Reverting editors (rather than building on their work) and leaving mean notes on their talk pages are proven ways to drive new editors away, so it's not surprising that we don't see many stick around. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • That is a good point WAID. On the other hand, the structure of the situation lends itself to very bad interactions. At the end of the semester, scads of procrastinating students post badly done edits to mainspace as they have grades on the line. WP:NODEADLINE is out the window, on the individual student side, and their COI is front and center. And the editors in the trenches are working like crazy to get bad content out of mainspace, all over the place. Doesn't lend itself to quality edits being made, nor to calm and considered interactions on either side. Jytdog (talk) 16:11, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • WAID has her N=1 sample, I have mine (and many many more). That we are chasing them off is one of the PERENNIAL arguments in these discussions. I invite you to peruse klazomania and the ridiculously extensive editing I had to do to salvage something there on an insanely obscure topic about which there are no sources and for an article which gets basically no pageviews[16]-- mentoring, guiding, and talk page interaction between me and the students (on the article talk page and on the student talk pages), resulting in a better than decent article and good interaction with the students ... and show me one of them that has returned ? I have more examples. This argument is not representative of what we deal with or how we deal with student editing, and is a factual distraction. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Images

    On a sidenote, a quick spotcheck from me turned up at least one student that has uploaded an improperly licensed photo to the Commons (File:LowT MenAging.jpg), so it's worth being on the lookout for those. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 07:19, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    File deleted. — Revi 07:40, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    And another from same prof

    It gets worse; the prof was part of another course (whose course page is also not filled out with students and articles), well before any training:

    So, yes, what kinds of processes and controls does the EP have in place even for registered courses? Could we please start seeing some term-end summaries of courses, students, profs and articles? And is anyone on staff actually monitoring any of these courses and profs routinely, or are y'all just waiting until "we" complain and point out the problems? Doc James, copyvio checks needed over there, and the articles aren't even listed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:05, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Found one article: Now You See It (Cathy Davidson book). Anyone find a Conflict of Interest declaration for that ? There is not one on article talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:11, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And that COI article was added with one edit from this sandbox (shall I note that most of those editors have not returned to Wikipedia, in spite of none of the unpleasant interference that is frequently alleged in here? As far as I can tell, no one even pointed out the COI or took them to the COINoticeboard.)
    SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Copy and paste bot going global

    Right now we have a copy and paste detection bot running on only medical and pharmaceutical articles. What has prevented us from launching this globally is we are not sure we have the volunteer capacity to handle the number of flagged edits that may appear. If this had been launched globally it would have caught the above problem much sooner.

    I would like to request community support for me hiring someone to review all flagged edits that occur. I plan to look at hiring a university student or two which would work at my office in Cranbrook, British Columbia. This person will also collect data for publication on the size of the issue that we are facing and try to figure out way too prevent it from occurring further.

    Because part of the position involves direct editing I wish to determine that the community does not see this as out of line before I do it.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:42, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Support

    Of course. Hope many volunteers jump on board. This position will also collect data for publication. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks User:SuperHamster. Appreciate the support. I will ping you when it goes global. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:20, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Conditional support - OK, as a long time power user on enwiki, I highly doubt you will ever get full support for paid editing, no matter what. I suggest that your paid student good-faith-vandal-fighter does nothing more than set up the needed reverts with an understandable explanation why the revert(s) is/are necessary and then before actually EXECUTING the revert(s), gets the OK from an unpaid Wikipedian. I say this because otherwise your reverter is going to get a whole lot of flack from the community otherwise. The reverter, whoever he/she is, is going to have sleepless nights from personal attacks by student copyvio makers anyway in the beginning, so it would be very helpful for him/her if you set up a support network first of helpful insiders. Jane (talk) 10:13, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Taking the last part first, I agree that ensuring the new hire is aware of the risks associated with taking on a higher-profile position like this is very important. In my last decade on Wikipedia, I can say with some relief that most attacks and harassment I've personally encountered as a Wikipedia editor (and administrator) have been confined to the project itself and lasted for relatively short periods of time. Nevertheless, I also know of situations where harassment and doxing have extended to other websites and to the offline world. (Remaining pseudonymous should be carefully considered, though I suspect that some of the more industrious trolls on 'those other websites' will make an effort to pierce this individual's privacy; sadly, trying and failing to remain pseudonymous may end up attracting more unwanted attention than identifying oneself publicly from the outset.)
      If this new hire does not have administrative rights on Wikipedia, s/he may be insulated from some of the abuse, as it will be other Wikipedia editors who actually carry out the blocks and page protections—but that will be an imperfect shield at best.
      On the other hand, I would suggest that the 'administrative overhead' associated with the first part of the suggestion, while well-intended, is wholly unnecessary. Requiring a second person to endorse and carry out each revert of a copy-and-paste doubles the workload involved without actually protecting the project from anything. (Actually, it may make things worse than that—if a copy-and-paste is not remedied quickly, then subsequent edits to the article may make it more difficult to unwind the addition of copied material without losing the benefit of later efforts.) Speaking to paid editing in general, I don't think there should be a problem. Paid editing is seen as problematic when there is a clear conflict of interest in play, and especially where an editor is being paid to advocate for a particular position. In this instance, the editor would be paid to do something which precisely aligns with Wikipedia's interests: remove copyright violations from our articles, with no advocacy component whatsoever.
      It may be helpful to segregate the edits this individual makes as a paid employee (the copyright cleanup stuff) from the edits this individual makes (if any) as a volunteer by using two separate accounts. Especially for the first while, it may be worthwhile to restrict the number of reverts the employee should make with respect to any one instance of copyvio or plagiarism. (That is, refer cases to AN/I or ANEW sooner rather than later, even despite the blanket exception to 3RR provided for reverts of copyvios.) Bank some recognition and goodwill, and get the denizens of AN/I used to seeing your name. The importance of social skills (in addition to technical aptitude and English fluency) cannot be overstated in James' hiring decision. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • If James' hires someone, I doubt they'll get much flak for paid editing. I RFA'ed partly on the basis that the toolset would be helpful for my paid position at Berkeley which involves direct editing (although admittedly not as much as I'd like, I had a peripheral aneurysm this semester,) and my RFA ended up closing 88-2 and I'm not sure anyone even mentioned in a negative way the idea that I was engaged in paid editing (really, paid adminship.) I've gotten a few complaints about it, but I'm a generally controversial person and most of the complaints were just someone looking for something to head me over the head with rather than genuine concern. I've taken a couple irregular admin actions to correct problems my students were having (including blocking people who had serious problems with their content and weren't checking their email or going to class with instructions to come see me in office hours,) and have gotten universal support from the people who noticed it. As long as whoever James hires sticks to correcting problems created by education program students on their paid time, I doubt they'll get anything but thanks from the community. Kevin Gorman (talk) 18:56, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Oppose

    More planning needed. I'm entering this in the "oppose" column not because I think it's a bad idea overall, but because I think something like this should be planned and communicated a bit more extensively. As many of you know, I have deep and abiding respect for Doc James and his work. I have strong personal trust in his diligence and integrity in carrying out a project like this, and do not worry that the direct output of this project would pose any problems.
    However, I think we need to keep in mind that Wikipedia is a project built on principles, not on personal trust. An effort like this would be new and bold, and I think we would be foolish to suppose that it won't be cited as precedent in the future. Viewed from that perspective, we have to anticipate that people who do not have Doc James' background will try to do something similar.
    So before this step is taken, I consider it very important to clearly and publicly articulate the nature of work these staff will be expected to do, and how disclosure and accountability and related issues will be handled. I have tried to take on similar issues in my own work, and I hope the statement of ethics I have published might be a useful model. (Careful readers will note that it's published under a "ND" license; I am open to changing that if useful.) -Pete (talk) 20:57, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Discuss

    This is the human editor follow up. TP means true positive. Quote means maybe okay. And FP means false positive. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:06, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, that makes sence. The terms true positive and false positive aren't going to be widely understood outside those with experience in experimental design. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:09, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes this bot was launched by WP:MED though :-) We can use better terminology. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:14, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    How about column name "copyvio?" and Yes/no? — Revi 08:17, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:18, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    This is MUCH bigger then the education program, this RFC should be at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). — xaosflux Talk 16:37, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Especially as this is going to involve paid editors. — xaosflux Talk 16:55, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks User:Xaosflux a RfC is posted at the top and I have also posted over at the policy board. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:03, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Doc James: Who will be paying these editors, you? Will they be considered your agents as far as edits go? Do we expect them to be eligible to vote/!vote on community issues like RfA's or functionary elections? — xaosflux Talk 17:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The plan would be for me to pay them (but if other organizations are interested in helping I would not complain). If they are a prior editor they will create a new account for this position. This account will just be for reverting "copy violations" and providing feedback on users pages regarding how to avoid further issues in the future. They will not be voting in RfA, or weighting in in other community discussion. They will not be involved with content issues outside of plagiarism. They will produce data for the community at least once a year on the magnitude of the issues detected. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:00, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Accountability

    As I've discussed (at length ... :) on the education incidents noticeboard, there are several accountability and enforcement concerns with respect to the walled garden at WP:ENB and WP:ENI:

    1. By bringing issues to ENI we have shielded the broader community at ANI and other places from the breadth and depth of problems with student editing. ENI has only 68 watchers, and pretty much no admins doing any sort of enforcement, until a few days ago, anyway, where we got one new admin on board. For gosh sakes, my user talk page has 556 watchers: we'd be better off bringing problems there where someone would see them! The problems with student editing have largely been discussed in this walled garden, without awareness being brought forward outside of this walled garden, resulting in escalating issues over the years.
    2. EP staff is unlikely, unwilling, or unable to enforce community norms via, for example, use of sysop tools. Student editing incidents should move to ANI, where admins will a) become aware of the serious issues, and b) take sysop action as they would with any other editor.
    3. Could someone please educate me? What exactly is this "course instructor right", who confers it, how is that done, are sysop tools required to confer it, and how can the status be revoked? In other words, when course instructor rights should be revoked, is that a matter that can go to ANI?

    Finally, I propose:

    • EP staff should produce a bi-annual report (December and June, coinciding with term-ends) detailing:
    1. Number of registered courses that term (including name of course), with:
    2. List of instructors and other ambassadors, online assistants, whatever we're calling them these days
    3. List of students enrolled
    4. List of articles affected.

    We need some accountability from PAID staff to be able to track the copyvio, plagiarism, original research, poorly or unsourced content, etc. As of now, we have multiple incomplete course pages, where we don't even know what articles are hit, and the paid staff at the Education Program should be tasked with going through contribs and producing bi-annual lists for accountability.

    It is time for this program to become accountable to the entire community, stop operating behind closed doors, or shut down.

    SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I think "List of instructors and other ambassadors, online assistants" can be viewed in Special:Userlist by selecting appropriate userrights. — Revi 15:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    More of the walled garden (which is what the EP software accomplishes). These folks should produce a list at the end of each term, so editors actually working in the trenches can review the damage at the article level. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:58, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I plan to do so. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:14, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you, much appreciated :) And I see the CUNY course page articles are being filled in, via some strange mechanism that I don't understand, meaning that I can't diff now to the course page of yesterday, which included no article links. Meaning also that some of my statements throughout these discussions look wrong, since I can't diff the CUNY course page with no articles listed. More of the walled garden issues with how the EP software is set up ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:42, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I added in the articles this morning because you requested that someone fill it out so any interested editors can take a look at the articles students worked on. My team is working on reviewing and improving those articles today. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, thank you, and that is appreciated. But since whatever mechanism you use to add them doesn't allow me to link to a diffed course page showing no articles listed as of yesterday, several posts above now have no meaning. These software issues are an example of the EP walled garden, where it operates differently from the rest of wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:02, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't know ENI existed till just now. I agree, WEF needs to get in the game or just close shop. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Chris troutman, just to be clear this board is WP:ENB, and ENI (the incident noticeboard) is that away. Although we have pretty much no admin oversight or enforcement in either place, and lots of questions about accountability to community norms and standards, and their enforcement or lack thereof. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:43, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • The course instructor right allows someone to create and edit a course page, nothing else. There are very few circumstances where it should be revoked; revoking it does very little good in most situations, since it mostly just means that instructors would have a hard time making their courses trackable even if they wanted to. A trackable shitty course is better than an untrackable shitty course. I've taken some administrative action against students, but a majority were my own, and the rest were issues I found and dealt with privately without bringing to EN or ENI. I am fully of the opinion that a strong consensus formed to block a class or to nuke a class's edits on this board is valid, and am willing to act as a closer (and implementer) for any such discussion regarding a class that I haven't been involved with, as long as I haven't formed a personal opinion about the course in question strong enough to interfere with my ability to read consensus. (Sorry all re: my recent absence from this board and email; I had a peripheral aneurysm this semester.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:44, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Okay, now I'm really confused. Kevin Gorman, are you saying that only accounts/editors who have some sort of relationship with WikiEd, as you have, are allowed to post here? And only WikiEd sanctioned admins can act? If that's the case, then the walled garden analogy should be extended to walled country and WikiEd should separate from WP and set up their own wiki. Seriously. Victoria (tk) 19:52, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    That's so close to the opposite of what I'm saying that now I'm confused as bloody hell too. Whenever there's an effort to pass a new type of proposal in a new place (or someone uses RfC instead of RM,) there's always debate as to whether or not that consensus is valid and enforceable. All I was saying was that I'm strongly of the opinion that it's valid and enforceable and that I will enforce it - pretty much encouraging people to open broad proposals to block or massrollback classes where they truly feel it's necessary. And I have no idea where you got the idea I was suggesting only editors connected to the education program could post here. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:00, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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