Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/Cornell University/Online Communities (Fall 2014)/Timeline

Timeline

Week 1: Wikipedia essentials

In class (Aug 28)

• Introduction to how Wikipedia will be used in the course
• Setting up accounts
• Editing basics
• Working with sandboxes

Assignment (due Sep 4)

• Start the online student orientation. During this training you will make edits in a sandbox and learn the basic rules of Wikipedia.
• Put something on your user profile page
• Sign up on the list of students on the course page
• To practice editing and communicating on Wikipedia, leave a message for a classmate on their user talk page. Don't forget the four tildes (~~~~) to sign off your message.
• Watch this TED Talk by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

Week 2: Editing basics

In class (Sep 4)

• Anatomy of Wikipedia articles, what makes a good article, how to distinguish between good and bad articles
• Tips on finding the best articles to work on for the class project
• Finding sources for your article
• Critically evaluate an existing Wikipedia article related to the class, and leave suggestions for improving it on the article’s talk page.
• Research and list 3–5 articles on your Wikipedia user page that you will consider working on as your main project.
• Handouts: Advice for choosing articles and How to get help

Assignment (due Sep 11)

• Find a team of 3-4 people, interdisciplinary (not everyone from the same major)
• On the course talk page, list your group members.
• Identify a C-Class article that you will expand. Add your article to the class’s course page.
• On the article talk page, put the Wikipedia class assignment banner.
• Start a new section on the talk page of the article, and right a proposal for expanding the article:
  • Write a summary version 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.
  • More information in the talk page.

Week 3: Using sources and communicating with Wikipedians

In class (Sep 11)

• Handouts: “Referencing on Wikipedia” and “Understanding Wikipedia’s copyright policy”

Assignment (due Sep 18)

• Sources: Compile a bibliography of relevant sources and post it to the talk page of the article you are working on. For each source, describe in 1-2 sentences the main points you will be taking from it.
• Communicating with other Wikipedians: Identify specific individuals who may have an interest in the article you are editing: those who have edited the article in the past, who are active in a relevant WikiProject related to the article, or who have edited other related articles. Reach out to these individuals by posting messages on their talk pages letting them know that you are college students who are editing this article as a class assignment and would like their help and advice. Add as many details as possible so they can evaluate your authenticity: links to the article you are editing, to your user pages and to the class page, information about the class and the assignment, and why you are asking for their help.

Week 4: Adding images

In class (Sep 18)

• Handout: “Uploading images"

Assignment (due Sep 25)

• Sources: Check the reliability of your sources; add at least 5 more sources, check their reliability as well.
• Start adding and fixing content: make small fixes of grammar, broken links, etc.; add or change content based on 2-3 sources you have; in the talk page create a new section and describe the changes you have made.
• Continue communicating with Wikipedians.

Week 5: Making progress

Assignment (due Oct 2)

• Expand your article into an initial draft of a comprehensive treatment of the topic: make the changes you proposed in the project plan; incorporate the sources into the article; make structural changes to the article, fix formatting problems
• Communicate your edits in the talk page
• Choose another group’s article that you will peer review and copy-edit: put your name with a link to your user page on the table in the course talk page. You don’t need to start reviewing yet.

Week 6: Peer feedback, final edits, and group report

In class (Oct 2)

• Peer feedback on articles: read carefully the article you have chosen to review and the associated talk page. Open a new section in the article talk page, and provide to the group with detailed feedback that considers the elements below, offering concrete suggestions for improving the article. Provide feedback about the content, organization and style, and sources in the article:

• Content:

1. Are there any phrases or paragraphs that are confusing? How can the phrasing be improved or clarified?
2. Are there any missing or ambiguous definitions? What is required to clarify or disambiguate them?
3. Are there any pieces of information that you think are missing from the article? Is this information provided elsewhere in Wikipedia and could be linked to from this article or merged?
4. Is the article written from a neutral point of view? Does it speak to an international audience? If not, what needs to be done to improve it?

• Organization and style

1. Is the article organized in a logical manner? Is the organization similar to that of related articles at a higher level (B-class or higher)? How can the organization of the current article be improved?
2. Are descriptions clear and concise? What sections or paragraphs could be simplified or clarified?
3. Are there missing links to other relevant Wikipedia articles? If there are only few links missing, add the links immediately.
4. Are there any typos or grammatical errors? If you identify any, correct them immediately. If a whole section needs clean up, describe what needs to be fixed.

• Sources

1. Are there statements that are missing citations? List those statements and add “citation needed” wherever you identify them.
2. Are the cited references relevant and reliable? Do the links provided through these references lead to the correct source? List unreliable, irrelevant, or broken references and suggest improvements.
3. Are all references, both in-line citations and in the reference section, formatted correctly? If those are quick fixes, do them immediately. Otherwise, list the required fixes.

Assignment (due Oct 9)

• Finalize your edits: finalize your edits in response to feedback from other Wikipedians, from the teaching staff, and from your class mates who reviewed your article. Communicate the changes you have made on the talk page clearly and concisely, and respond to any feedback you have received from others on the talk page.
• Submit a group report: Create a sandbox in one of the group members’ user account, and submit the report on that page. Provide a link to your report on the course talk page under “final report” in the table. The report should include responses to the following topics and questions. Make sure to not only describe, but also reflect, and connect your answers to course concepts covered so far in the semester.

1. Your contribution to the article including details about content, organization, multimedia, links, etc. Describe where you got the information for these changes and what sources you used. Do you think the article is now ready to move up from a C-Class to a B-Class? Why or why not?
2. The evolution of the article in terms of what it was like when you started, what changes you made when, and how the current revision is different from the one when you just started. What contributed to the way that the article evolved?
3. The process of familiarizing yourselves with Wikipedia policies, correct formatting, and markup language. What policies and technical aspects did you need to learn to be able to improve the article? Where and how did you learn them? What prevented you from better learning the policies and technical aspects?
4. The community experience you had in terms of interactions with others through article pages, talk pages, wikiprojects, policy pages, or other means. Describe specific interactions, whom they were with, and whether they were beneficial or detrimental to your Wikipedia experience. Did you feel that you were in a community, a crowd, neither, or both, and why?
5. A breakdown of who did what in this project in terms of content, communication, and technical aspects.

Week 7: Individual reflection

In class (Oct 11)

• Group discussions around achievements, challenges, and connection to course concepts discussed so far

Assignment (due Oct 16)

• Individual report: describe and reflect individually on the process you went through in “becoming a Wikipedian”, and connect your experience to course concepts we covered in the first half of the semester.

1. Describe and reflect on the process of contributing to Wikipedia: what article did you edit, what changes did the group do to the article, and what were your individual contributions compared to other group members? What were the highlights and the lowlights? How did you overcome challenges? Provide specific examples.
2. Describe and reflect on your community experience in Wikipedia: Who did you (individually) communicate with, about what, and through what means? How was this communication beneficial or detrimental to your Wikipedia experience? Provide specific examples.
3. Reflect on your overall experience in this project: was it a positive or a negative one? What contributed to this experience? What did you learn? What do you wish you have learned and didn’t? Would you continue editing Wikipedia? Why or why not?
4. Connect your experiences to course concepts: choose 3 topics covered in the course so far through course readings, lectures, class activities and discussions (topics included: crowds and communities; adoption and diffusion; socializing newcomers; motivating contributions; social and behavioral norms; behavior regulation). Describe some experiences that you had in light of these topics. How do your experiences demonstrate or challenge concepts, ideas, and findings in the class materials?

Finally, you will be asked to evaluate yourself and other members of your group in terms of quality and quantity of contribution to this project.

(Click to return to your main course page and continue.)