Detractions

Nothing goes unheard in the Trojan language

While most grievances could be fixed by a few cleverly written scripts, there still exists one fundamental incompatibility with using Wikipedia as a LMS--no private messaging. Midway through the term we conducted our “midterm” in which the student wrote a roadmap for his Wikipeida article. Typically this happens privately in the Berkeley LMS bSpace, or over email, but we boldly decided that students should post their reports on their talk pages. After all I was conducting an experiment here. This may have had some effect to incentivise the student to work harder, as his or her midterm would be publicly viewable. Then came the unforseen unintended consequence. The grading of the project by the instructor would have to be publicly viewable too. Its widely practiced philosophy that a student’s result are communicated privately, but Wikipedia offers no functionality--by design--for private communication. Undoubtedly, as it stands there is the need for private communication between instructor and pupil. To move to Wikipedia as a LMS would mean that either social conventions or messaging functionality will have to change.