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Online Ambassador application: shubhamelle

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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.

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

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 Done

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.

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'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

 Done

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)
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)

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)
Education Program:Northeastern University/Online Communities (2015-1-Spring) 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: Education Program:University of South Florida/LAE 6389: Practice Teaching Literature (Spring 2015). 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: Education Program:Florida International University/Rel 2011 - Religion: Analysis and Interpretation (Fall 2015). 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: Education Program:University of Detroit, Mercy/Social Psychology (Summer 2015). 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 akoval@wikimedia.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.
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 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)

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)

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)

Interwiki article links and articles not getting added

Hi, I have two questions about WP:EP extension:

  1. Is there a way to add a link to other language Wikipedia? Adding ":en:" in course page on cswiki to link to an article on enwiki doesn't seem to work.
    There isn't a way to do this in the extension.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:38, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  2. I am trying to assign two articles to one student. It seems though as there can't be both assigned at once: for some article names adding the second one doesn't do anything beside page reload. Have you ever got this "I add article and nothing happens" too and is there a place where I could find out which kind of error is it getting stopped by? The page just reloads and doesn't show any warnings in stead of reloading and adding that given article to given student.
    You can only assign one article that doesn't exist to each student. (This is because it stores that with article id 0, and it won't let you repeat the id.) You can assign other articles as along as they exist locally, though.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:38, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

--14:12, 22 May 2015 (UTC), Utar (talk)

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)

@ProfGray: That class is unusual in that it has a couple students who are also Wikipedians. We do try to ensure that active Wikipedians who work with a class as non-students sign up as "course volunteer" or "campus volunteer". The dashboard only tracks students' edits during the time of the class, but I don't think there's a very good way to know for certain which edits were for their assignment and which weren't (many students work on multiple articles for class, adding links, sources, and bits of information elsewhere). Sage (Wiki Ed) can probably better speak to this, but my sense is that it's uncommon enough that it isn't, at this point, skewing the numbers too problematically. But, yes, we do evaluate the courses and request feedback from professors. We will be doing that a couple different ways in the near-to-mid future, but if you have feedback about your class, course pages, the dashboard, or how Wiki Education works in general I hope you'll let us know. Let us know if a phone call works best for you. Helaine (Wiki Ed) do you want to add anything? --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:54, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
As Ryan (Wiki Ed) said, we'll be sending out our end of semester survey shortly, but we always welcome feedback whenever you have it. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:57, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
Just a quick follow-up to clarify something: While characters added is something we look at, I certainly don't want to give the impression that we understand more characters added to mean it's a more successful class. Course objectives and class sizes vary, but more significantly, a large number of characters added doesn't mean all of the content is good. What's important is the quality of the contributions in the end. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:41, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
But Ryan (Wiki Ed), characters is the key metric of the dashboard. Every course links to the dashboard, so it sends a real message. If WEF could present a qualitative review of courses (and students) in the dashboard, that would be truly fabulous. Absent that capacity, though, WEF's dashboard is encouraging folks to focus on characters.
You suggested that it doesn't skew the numbers. But did you notice that it's over 470,000 characters?! No single course wrote that many characters. It's bigger than ~35 of the smaller courses. So I recommend that it be corrected. ProfGray (talk) 14:23, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
@ProfGray: If we swapped the page views and characters, do you think that would de-emphasize the characters added? FYI, we frequently highlight good student work in our monthly report. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:01, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
Maybe, Helaine (Wiki Ed). My point was mainly to encourage somebody to revise the characters data. I don't know what better metrics are feasible. Page views seems odd. It might be beneficial for WEF to host a broader discussion on metrics, my opinion is of pretty limited value. Yes, I saw and liked how you folks publicized some fine student contributions. Keep doing that! Oh, and a belated welcome back! ProfGray (talk) 18:49, 22 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)

I think Piotrus poses an interesting question here. There are a lot of interesting possibilities for having students do reparative work. A few instructors have had students evaluate articles, address issues raised in maintenance tags, aggressively copyedit, etc. but it's pretty uncommon and not something we currently have much material written to support. If anybody has thoughts for specific assignments along those lines (and along the lines of those ideas mentioned by ProfGray above), I'd love to hear them (and even how Wiki Ed could provide support for such an activity). I'd also be curious as to the sorts of learning objectives they could serve to fulfill.

I do also want to register my high level of concern for any assignment that requires students to engage at AfD, though. AfD is, as far as I'm concerned, way too far down the rabbit hole for students. It's one of the areas on Wikipedia with the most consistently strict norms for communication (and one of the areas that feels most like a courtroom), which can be very difficult for any new user to pick up (nevermind one who was directed to AfD rather than jumped in out of personal interest). Only certain arguments are considered valid at all, and confrontation is common when language doesn't match up to the particularities of this or that policy (mostly concerning notability). Whereas most changes on Wikipedia can easily be undone, deletion is permanent (well, not actually, but you have to be an administrator to restore an article), and that the stakes are high means things are more confrontational/contentious. Furthermore, the opinions of new users are more frequently discounted there than at a typical talk page. Because it's such an "inside" part of the site, the assumption is that if a new user is participating, they're likely to be an "SPA" (a "single purpose account", implying an agenda). A blue linked username is good, but that won't stop students from being tagged in the discussion with Template:spa. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:35, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Excellent description. AfD is suitable for advanced pre-law students or the college debate team. ProfGray (talk) 16:39, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
Good points. The students should at the very least study Wikipedia:Arguments_to_avoid_in_deletion_discussions, and be familiar with technical things (like - sign their post, use hyperlinks, don't break templates, etc.). What do you think about an assignment that would require them to 1) first read the Arguments... and Wikipedia:Notability (companies), 2) study/analyze/discuss a list of former AfDs (ex [2]), 3) then comment in Category:AfD debates (Organisation, corporation, or product)/Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Business, and only in the last half, after few weeks in which they'd see through some deletions to the end, they'd 4) start their own nominations, working from notability cleanup list for Wikipedia:WikiProject Business (hmmm, looking at [3] it seems this is not enabled for WikiProject Business right now, but I think I fixed it)? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:12, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
Piotr, are you planning a course yourself or suggesting that WEF pitch this to potential teachers for next academic year? If the latter, I'm skeptical. For your own course, I'm curious about your students -- because my students found Wikipedia unfamiliar and it was challenging enough to teach them basic editing. Your potential AfD assignment would benefit Wikipedia, but why would students be motivated to do this? How much time would you devote to getting them up to speed on enough WP policies? Perhaps most importantly, what do you see as the learning outcomes or competencies that you're trying to teach them? (You could also get a large class to respond to minor vandalism, but how would this benefit students?) Thanks! ProfGray (talk) 14:02, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
@ProfGray: This is not an idea for my course, but an idea of a colleague who is considering running such a course, and who I believe thinks that just adding content is not sufficient/best fit for his classes (I invited him here to explain it in more detail). Personally, I think it's an intriguing idea, through might be too difficult to pull of due to Wikipedia culture/infrastructure not making it easy to delete content/nominate it for deletion. Still, as you note, student input could be helpful for the project, so I wonder if we can figure out anything to make this a better fit. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:57, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
  • One of my assignments involved in part identifying and removing problematic content and explaining why on the talk page. Admittedly I wasn't targeting anything that would have 500 eyes on it or a bunch of PoV warriors, but it worked well both for the students and for the community Kevin Gorman (talk) 07:10, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Extrapolating from what I see above, a Talk Page assignment might be easier and proactive, then a more senior editor (perhaps the instructor or campus ambassador or affiliated admin) could post the AfD --if the arguments are sound, of course. Then the students analyze how the AfD's go down externally (or on the course Talk for the full monty). Hmmm. I might try that in my Fall ENG101. HullIntegrity\ talk / 13:42, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
And AfD discussions would be a great study of the use of Logos, Ethos, and Pathos (classic) and Claim, Reasons, Evidence, and Warrant (Toulmin) if one is teaching argument on any level. I love this discussion! Now maybe I should wander over to AfD and ruin my day. ;) HullIntegrity\ talk / 13:46, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
Yep. Ruined my day. Dammit. HullIntegrity\ talk / 21:07, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
HullIntegrity A little experience at AfD is one of the most useful ways to learn Wikipedia culture but yes, practically everyone who goes into that process experiences regular shocks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:31, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
I'd like to add that while deleting problematic content is something that should be done, one of the main goals of educating people about Wikipedia is not to get free work from students with the hopes of eventually freecruiting them, but to improve Wikipedia's relationship with non-editors (in order to generate both awareness and content). I don't think exposing them to something that is, at best, only constructive in the sense of "point gaining" is an effective way to do this - Wikipedia should _not_ be about amassing personal credits in any way, but should be about improving its content. Along those lines, I'll throw out the often stated "storage is cheap, research/content is not". Now that I've said all that - I do think there's something to be said for exposing students to many different aspects of Wikipedia. Having one or two assignments where the students have to create articles, and having a few where they have to remove content/delete articles, etc, seems like a reasonable idea. Maybe as long as they don't delete each others' articles. Tduk (talk) 17:15, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
Tduk I agree that the labor from students is more valuable than the content they would be likely to develop in this space. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:31, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment -- I have thought it over and here is what I have, stated in the worst possible way, because it "might" go down that way--creating a cohort of neophyte ("very low skill set") Wikipedia "book burners" (AfD) with an arguable Conflict of Interest (CoI) from the outset, who are also arguably meat-puppets for the instructor (I hate that term, but it is out there. and that is what will be used) sounds like a Perfect Wikipedia Education Storm. But then predicting eminent disaster seems to be my thing. I am sometimes right. And that is a LOT of active, special-interest, highly political editors and admins to negotiate. HullIntegrity\ talk / 20:19, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
The short version: AfD + CoI + New Editors + Meat-puppetry + Education + (I can think of a few more) = POTENTIALLY a lot of trouble and needs to be frame-worked, explained, forcasted, and protected by active admins. HullIntegrity\ talk / 20:34, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

A CC-BY-SA prezi about "teaching with Wikipedia" aimed at educators

I updated my old prezi on "teaching with Wikipedia". The new one, available here, may be of interest to anyone who would like to run a lecture/seminar/brown bag talk/workshop/etc. at your local educational institution to introduce people to what we do here. It's CC-BY-SA, and you should be able to copy it and edit to tweak to your requirements. Enjoy! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:31, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Piotrus Thanks. I have been thinking of making one of these. People tell me that it is not so difficult, and I like the look that you achieved with yours. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:53, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
Dear Piotr, Thanks from me, too! :) This is great! Are you planning to share a version on Commons? And is the transcript anywhere on-wiki yet? In case anyone wants to translate it. I know well how much work can go into preparing a Prezi. My students were always fans of them. I, myself, however, find that Prezis make me feel seasick, cause eye strain, and sometimes even trigger migraines. Sad but true. :( Nevertheless, I've happily linked to your Prezi on the Education Program portal on Outreach wiki. That's just a placeholder for now until this summer when I hope to finally be able to revive/revamp the Education Bookshelf. Thanks again for sharing this valuable resource with all of us. All the best, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 12:16, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
Hi Piotrus. I like your presentation! I noticed a few typos, and since I've been meaning to play with Prezi anyway, I copied your presentation and edited it. My edited version is here; feel free to copy it back. Thanks for the presentation, and for the introduction to Prezi! Maralia (talk) 14:10, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
@AKoval (WMF): I am afraid I don't know how to share a Prezi with Commons; I am afraid they are using a proprietary format. A transcript can be copied from the Prezi page, but I am afraid I don't have time to wikify it.
@Piotrus: No worries. Maybe someone else can help. I've made a page for it on Outreach here. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 22:30, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
@Maralia: Thank you; any chance you have a list of fixes? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:14, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
@Piotrus: As a matter of fact I do:
Edits made to Teaching with Wikipedia
  • “Students use real life, collaborative tool they may encounter outside classroom…” - tool->tools
  • “MediaWiki platform, used on Wikipedia is the worlds’ most popular wiki software” - added comma after Wikipedia; worlds’->world’s
  • “They start creating their digital portfolio, with articles that may impress their future employees…” - employees->employers
  • “From the WMF blog on the first year of the “teaching in Wikipedia” initative…” - initative->initiative
  • “Wikimedia Foundation is a non-priofit NGO” - priofit->profit
  • John Hopkins -> Johns Hopkins
  • “Through 90% of practicing universities are in the US…” - Through->Though
  • “Consult with me (I am the Wikipedia Education Ambassador for Korea) and happy to help you incorporate this assignment into your course” - move end parenthesis to end of sentence
  • “Through most assignments focus on adding written content…” - Through->Though
  • “A few hours are necessary to learn the wiki, design an assignment an incorporate it into one’s course” - an->and
Hope that helps! Maralia (talk) 18:05, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Maralia. The updates and the list of fixes are very helpful. I've linked to your Prezi on the Education Program portal on Outreach wiki, too. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 22:30, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
Piotrus Cool Cool and Cool. HullIntegrity\ talk / 17:35, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: nanodudek

Nanodudek (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    I decided to retract my application and dive deeper into wikipedia. Thanks.
Discussion
I'm going to say not now. You need more experience than sporadic editing. OhanaUnitedTalk page 19:05, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

ClueBot misbehaving?

Is there something wrong with ClueBot?

I was looking for some semi-recent posts that seem the have gotten lost in the ether.

It seems that all of the posts between what's on the last archived page (#9) -- last post by Jami (Wiki Ed) at 17:41, 28 April 2015 (UTC) -- and what's on this page now -- first post by Piotrus at 03:47, 20 May 2015 (UTC) -- appear to be missing.

The ENB history page says ClueBot III is sending stuff to Archive 6, but if you search that page for those supposedly archived posts, they're not there.

And shouldn't it be sending stuff the next sequential number after 9, which would be 10, not 6?

Seems rather strange behavior for a bot. :\ Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 22:48, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

@AKoval (WMF): Thanks. I did notice this earlier today. The really strange thing is it's archiving to Archive6, a redirect to Archive_6 (and there are Archive1-Archive9 as well as Archive_1-Archive_9 already!). I'm working on it :) I temporarily disabled archiving when I saw it and left a message on the Cluebot talk page. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:15, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
@Ryan (Wiki Ed): Awesome: someone else this noticed, too. That means I'm not going crazy! :) And awesome-r: you're on it. Thanks for trying to straighten out this (temporarily) batty bot! :) Happy Friday to you. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 00:22, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

New undeclared course appears in progress

I note the creation today of:

There may be more that I just haven't noticed fly by the new page listing. All articles have been started by different users, leading me to suspect a course in progress in Labor Relations. Only one of the article seems particular problematic (the Lusty Lady Strike article is up for speedy deletion for multiple copyright violations), but it might be nice to have the course declared and monitored by the Wikipedians who are interested in such maters. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 21:42, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

It does seem like a class. Thanks for bringing it here and for leaving messages for the students. I noticed the copyvio text at Lusty Lady Strike was also duplicated at Lusty Lady (I grabbed a few blocks of text and random and found exact matches in a few different sources). Reverted and left a message. Other articles: ILWU 1971 Strike, Draft:Chrysler Auto Strike.
I've tracked it to the University of Washington based on anonymous edits to the Chrysler Auto Strike draft and User:JimmyN85, but don't know what class. @Helaine (Wiki Ed) and Sage (Wiki Ed): have you talked to someone at UW about related topics? --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:00, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
Labor Studies courses at UW. If I had to take a guess I'd say "POL S 249/SOC 266/HIST 249 – Introduction to Labor Studies" but there are a few possible hits. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:04, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
From the look of the subjects, these might be related to the recent labor archives edit-a-thon that was held at UW. I didn't make it to that event, but User:Pine or User:Peaceray might have a better idea.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:06, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
Hello!
Yes, I recognize all the articles mentioned above and they are student assignments. We are in a History of Labor in the U.S. course at the University of Washington Tacoma with professor Alex Morrow and he asked us to find a labor strike that does not have a formal Wikipedia page and create one. We worked in class on each others' articles; hence all the random activity.--JimmyN85 (talk) 00:28, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Based on requests I made at the various article's authors' talk pages, Professor Morrow contacted me. They did not log in to do so however, and I am hesitant to begin an off-wiki communication with the professor. Since at least one of the students has joined the discussion here, I would recommend that this student (JimmyN85) recommend to your professor that they register their coursework with the Wikipedia Education project so that proper guidance can be given (and so that the professor can be contacted should another issue such as Lusty Lady Strike arise). WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 03:05, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

@WikiDan61: Thanks for the follow-up. We'll reach out to the professor by email to see if we can get them on board. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:30, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment -- As usual, I am not comfortable with the tone of "patrolling" for student edits. If an instructor wants to work off-site, that should not be an issue. "Reaching out" is, of course, acceptable. HullIntegrity\ talk / 17:09, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Follow up I would also like a discussion at some point (perhaps at a conference) as to the need to refer to any editors as a "special class", in this case "student" (aka "minion" in some versions). Are not we all editors (until proven otherwise)? Is "student editor" a protected class in any way or a monitored class? Obviously the latter, but I worry over the former. They are partticularly monitored from a variety of angles, but why monitor them specifically if they are no different, in theory, from any other new editor? There are probably thousands and thousand of "student editors" on Wikipedia who are not in a class using Wikipedia. I know quite a few myself and they are not "flagged and tagged" at all unless they systematically make mistakes without progressing as editors. HullIntegrity\ talk / 21:19, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Pertinent thread at AN/I

Please see this thread and see if someone can confirm this is a class effort. Thank you,
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 21:08, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

To give a more detailed summary of the problem: This may be an undeclared course attended or operated by the sockpuppet of an indefinitely blocked user, User:036386536a. —Psychonaut (talk) 10:23, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: Elee

Elee (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    It'd be interesting to work with some of the CMS (comparative media studies) professors here to leverage Wikipedia as a tool in the classroom, and if we can do it with Reddit, why not Wikipedia?
  2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?
    MIT
  3. What is your academic and/or professional background?
    Undergraduate student, with research experience (in mathematics primarily).
  4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.
    I work with WP:AfC and countervandalism.
  5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    I've been successful in creating new curricula at the high school level, and can imagine those same experiences will be useful here.
Discussion

New course announcement: Conservation Biology (instructor: SpringKalmia)

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): --SpringKalmia (talk) 20:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

@SpringKalmia: I've looked over your assignment, and I think it will work for the time frame you have. As I mentioned to you, be sure to have your students go through the training and stick to the tasks you've assigned. Thanks for going through the training for educators and looking through all of our materials! I'll go ahead and grant you course instructor rights. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:14, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
Direct link : Education Program:Murray State University/Conservation Biology (Summer 2015) Mdann52 (talk) 19:24, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: CCO History 140 - The World Since 1945 (instructor: Shuksan210)

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): --Shuksan210 (talk) 14:20, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

@Shuksan210: Thanks for posting your assignment here. I think your course design looks good, but since you only have four weeks for your course, I suggest that you have students focus on one or two sections to add rather than all of the ones you listed. If they can achieve this in the time allowed, great, but I'm concerned it's too much for the timeframe of your course. We'd much rather they focus on quality over quantity. In the meantime though, I'll go ahead and grant you course instructor rights and create your course page. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:19, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Ed's Monthly Report for May is now available

The Wiki Education Foundation's Monthly Report for May 2015 is now available as a PDF, on-wiki, or on our blog. Cheers! Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:53, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Testing out the new course page system

This week we'll be starting to test out the new Wiki Ed course page system. Instead of new course pages in the Education_Program namespace, instructors will be setting up their course pages in Wikipedia space, as subpages of Wikipedia:Wiki Ed. Once the rough edges are worked out during the testing period, this should be a nice change for anyone who has been frustrated with the various problems of the EducationProgram extension.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:44, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Sage (Wiki Ed) What has changed? How can anyone see this? Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:53, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
User:Bluerasberry: it's up and live now at http://dashboard.wikiedu.org, and if you want to play around and test it, you can use http://dashboard-testing.wikiedu.org.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:05, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
Sage (Wiki Ed) I submitted a class. I am hoping that I can transfer the syllabus at Education_Program:Consumer_Reports/Choosing_Wisely_Canada_(summer_2015) to this course page but I will see how it works. I am waiting for approval. Thanks for this - I want to test this live before the school year starts. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:45, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
Bluerasberry The wikiedu.org system is only available for courses that meet the Wiki Ed requirements that we are supporting. If you just want to test the system to see what it will be like, please do it on dashboard-testing.wikiedu.org, and I can approve that.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:23, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Sage (Wiki Ed) I have my own course curricula at Education Program:Consumer Reports/Choosing Wisely Canada (summer 2015) and it is far different from what I am allowed to post at Dashboard testing Choosing Wisely. Can you respond -?
I prefer to send students to my course page on Wikipedia, but I want the metrics report from the Wiki Edu dashboard. If I get students to enroll on wiki, then can I as instructor manually input their usernames to the WikiEdu page so that I get the same metrics reports, without ever having to send them there?
I would be willing to use Wiki Edu page more but the learning curve is significant and I have a different course structure than what I am required to use in that interface. I would be willing to invest my time in designing a curricula that can be copy/pasted to wiki edu but I am not sure what is stable and what will change soon. Can you give an opinion about how reasonable it is for me to continue to use the English Wikipedia interface for students but do all my metrics tracking on Wiki Edu, perpetually? Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:23, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
How do I force add students to the Wiki Edu interface? Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:24, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
For the timeline content, you can click "Edit" on the Timeline view (here) to delete any content that you don't want, and add whatever you do want, so it should be possible to put in whatever info you need. It's also technically possible to just delete everything in the timeline, if you don't need that aspect of it. At this time, it's not possible to add other users to a course; each student must join the course with their own account. (That's a feature I want to add, but it's not a high priority right now.) The new analytics features will all still work with courses that use the EP extension, however, and you can add students directly with the EP extension. I think that's feasible for the time being. I think it'd be unwise to plan on any particular way of doing things perpetually at this point, but the options for tracking the activity of organized groups of editors will continue to improve.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:33, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

New resources for students editing ecology or women's studies

The Wiki Education Foundation has published two new brochures to help students editing ecology or women's studies articles. You can read more about them on our website. And a hearty thanks to the volunteers who reviewed and offered feedback on these brochures! Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:26, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: LIBR 2100: Introduction to Research in the Information Age (instructor: Librarydenyse)

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. I'm still making changes to the timeline but that information will be available soon.

@Helaine (Wiki Ed) and Ryan (Wiki Ed): --Librarydenyse (talk) 08:24, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

@Librarydenyse: Thanks for announcing your course here. I like how you have the students working in sandboxes and making use of talk pages to explain their edits (even if only minor). A few concerns I have though are 1. you have removed many of the links to Wiki Ed's handouts, including the training for students. 2. It looks like a lot of your work is happening off Wikipedia. I'd encourage you to have whatever your students do off Wikipedia included on Wikipedia as well. 3. I see you have some type of peer review, and Wikipedia is a great place for this to happen. 4. Finally, you mention that your students may work on medical topics. I strongly discourage this since these articles have very strict sourcing requirements. Thanks so much, and I will be following up with you shortly. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:24, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

@Helaine (Wiki Ed) and Ryan (Wiki Ed): Thank you so much for your feedback Helen. 1. I have restored the links to the Wiki Ed's handouts. I had hidden the Timeline section while working on some of the course details. There are still many details to be added, but the flow of the assignment is now available for your feedback. 2. The collection of information sources for the citation is happening off Moodle in conjunction with another assignment regarding APA citation. All other work for the addition of new content will be done on Moodle. I will review the assignments to see if more work can be done on Wikipedia. 3. Yes, I'm very excited by the opportunity for meaningful peer review that Wikipedia offers. 4. You are quite right. Including medical topics as a 'maybe' was a mistake on my part. It has been removed. Librarydenyse (talk) 19:53, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Librarydenyse Thanks for making these changes. Everything looks good. I'll go ahead and create your course page and grant you the course instructor right. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:55, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

User experience surveys

Are there any surveys that are conducted with instructors or students about their WP experiences? If there are, are they available online and if there are not, would this be a good idea to develop such surveys? I'm asking after reading this thread on Jimbo's talk page.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 14:20, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

At Wiki Ed we conduct an instructor survey to evaluate our resources and support, but I don't think this is what you're looking for; we don't conduct student surveys. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:03, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Growing Up Girl: Coming of Age in Women's Literature & Film (instructor: T-will2015)

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): --T-will2015 (talk) 19:30, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

@T-will2015: Thanks for using the wizard to create your course. I've gone ahead and granted you course instructor rights. Your syllabus looks good. I've also created your course page. I'll be following up with some more information. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 02:53, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: abhi2252

Abhi2252 (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    Being a Student Ambassador is a deeply rewarding opportunity both on a personal level and also in terms of my career prospects after leaving my college.As a Student Ambassador I will have the opportunity to get involved with many different types of work allowing me to develop skills I already have as well as gain new ones. Such skills may include;

Public Speaking Communication and interpersonal skills Presentation skills Team work Office experience

  1. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?
    I am from bhubaneshwar,orissa,India.I plan to work asa a campus ambassador with INSTITUTE OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH.
  2. What is your academic and/or professional background?
    I am a 2nd year B.tech student from ITER(SOA University).

Cgpa-8.05(till 2nd semister) 12 percentage-73% 10 percentage-89.3

  1. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.
    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)
  2. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)
Discussion

Oppose Almost no experience. OhanaUnitedTalk page 03:03, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: reyanshsk

Reyanshsk (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    WILLING TO DO WORK FOR SOCIETY, WANT TO BECOME A PART OF WIKIPEDIA TO REPRESENT THIS IN OUR AREA
  2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?
    PANDHARPUR, MAHARASHTRA, AS AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN ENGINEERING COLLEGE, AND NEAR BY 5 ENGINEERING COLLEGES AND 6 POLYTECHNIC COLLEGES AND MANY SCHOOLS AND JUNIOR SENIOR COLLEGES ARE EXISTING
  3. What is your academic and/or professional background?
    HAVE COMPLETED B.E. MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AND M.E. MECHANICAL DESIGN*
  4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.
    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)
  5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    I AM WORKING AS ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AND HEAD OF ENGINEERING RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT OF OUR COLLEGE-KARMAYOGI ENGINEERING COLLEGE
Discussion

New course announcement: Méthodologie universitaire (1DATME11) (instructor: Mfvdietrich)

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.

I've also edited my user page to introduce myself.

@Pharos, Bluerasberry, Kevin Gorman, and AKoval (WMF): --Mfvdietrich (talk) 14:00, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of Alberta, Augustana Campus/Psychology of Language (Fall 2015) (instructor: User:Marentette)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Psychology of Language. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Marentette (talk) 16:23, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Valparaiso University/Engl 400 New Literacies, Technologies, and Cultures of Writing (Fall 2015) (instructor: User:Aschuet1)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Engl 400 New Literacies, Technologies, and Cultures of Writing. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Aschuet1 (talk) 17:31, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Rotherwas Fellows (instructor: Nmcourtright)

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): --Nmcourtright (talk) 18:29, 20 July 2015 (UTC) Nmcourtright (talk) 18:29, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

@Nmcourtright: Thanks for going through the wizard! I've looked through your course assignment, and everything looks good. I especially like how you note that students will work on original research off of Wikipedia. I've gone ahead and created your course page and granted you the course instructor right. I'll be following up with you shortly. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:03, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Northeastern_University/Online_Communities_(F15) (instructor: User:Reagle)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Online Communities. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Reagle (talk) 13:28, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Bucknell_University/Too_Much_Information_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:KatieBU)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Too Much Information. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--KatieBU (talk) 13:09, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

@KatieBU: Hi there. Thanks for creating a course page. It looks like you may have submitted it multiple times. I've removed the duplicate announcements and just wanted to let you know that the submission was successful and that my colleague, Helaine (Wiki Ed) will be in touch early next week with the next steps. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:30, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
Thanks Ryan. KatieBU (talk) 20:45, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Cornell_University/BioG_1250_Writing_for_Wikipedia_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Saguaromelee)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, BioG 1250 Writing for Wikipedia. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Saguaromelee (talk) 14:56, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/School/New_Course_(Term) (instructor: User:Ntdb)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, New Course. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Ntdb (talk) 21:13, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Kent_State_University/The_Politics_of_Inequality_in_the_United_States_(Fall) (instructor: User:Cassell04)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, The Politics of Inequality in the United States. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Auburn_University/Composition_I_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Lmdouko82)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Composition I. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:25, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/OSU_Newark/Gender,_Sex_and_power_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Tiyimorris)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Gender, Sex and power. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:49, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Clark_Honors_College/Preventing_Genocide_and_Mass_Atrocities_in_the_21st_Century__(Fall) (instructor: User:Dfrank23)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities in the 21st Century . If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:54, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_San_Francisco/RHET_295_Writing_in_Electronic_Environments_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Cathygaborusf)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, RHET 295 Writing in Electronic Environments. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:19, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Rollins_College/Writing_about_Wikipedia_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:PCFleming05)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Writing about Wikipedia. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 03:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_Toronto/HMB436H_Medical_and_Veterinary_Mycology_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Medmyco)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, HMB436H Medical and Veterinary Mycology. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:06, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Change in instructor user rights with new course page system

Wiki Ed will be moving to a new course page system in the fall term, which means that all courses receiving our support will no longer be using the EducationProgram MediaWiki extension. You can see the new course page system at work at our dashboard (a call for testing was announced above). This course page system does not depend on the course instructor right, so we are planning to deprecate our use of it to prevent confusion. We do not plan to grant the right to future instructors, and beginning next week, we will remove all course instructor rights granted by Wiki Ed staff. If an instructor's right was granted by a community member (including those acting as Regional Ambassadors), we will not remove the right unless the community member who granted the rights asks us to. Courses not supported by Wiki Ed (such as those in countries other than the U.S. and Canada or instructors who want to operate without our support) may still use the extension (as might leaders of edit-a-thons or other outreach events), and we encourage interested community members to determine a process for granting the course instructor user right in those cases.

Within our new system, community members will be able to easily identify instructors on their user page and track courses on our dashboard as well as via on-wiki pages for each course. A notification will also be placed here on the noticeboard for each new course created. The primary course pages will be on dashboard.wikiedu.org, but the on-wiki pages — which are subpages of Wikipedia:Wiki Ed, such as Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Wiki Ed-APS/Summer Seminar in Psychology (2015) — will be automatically kept up to date. (These are regular wiki pages, so all the usual tools like "what links here" will work as expected, and the automatic updates are made by the instructors and student editors themselves, so will be easier follow a user's contribution history to find out which class they are in and what they are working on.) The new system provides a better user interface for program participants while also offering more on-wiki transparency for community members than the existing EducationProgram extension does.

A list of users to whom we've granted this right in the past is available here; please let us know if there are errors in this list. We will start removing these users' rights on July 20. @Biosthmors, Bluerasberry, Daniel Simanek, Frankcjones, Kayz911, Ktr101, and OhanaUnited:, @Pharos, Pongr, and Rjensen:, you also granted user rights to instructors participating in our program in the past. Please let us know if you would like us to take responsibility for the removal of instructor user rights for anyone you granted it to as well. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:36, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

That works for me, LiAnna. Would it be possible though to whip up a boiler template so that we can leave a polite note to these professors letting them know why we're doing that, or has that been published elsewhere already? Thanks! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:44, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
Will do — we'll be sending them all an email with instructions to log in through our new system, but I'll definitely draft something up in the next week that we can leave on talk pages too. Would you like us to remove the rights for instructors you granted them to, or will you do that yourself? Either way is fine with me, just add any usernames to the list in Adam's userspace linked above if you'd like us to remove them. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:52, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
I can do them myself, as I have some free time in the coming days and it should not be all that hard to do. I just figured it might be nice to leave some sort of notice, as there will always be one person who might not read the e-mail first and wonder what is up. Thanks for the help though, and I will be sure to get on it in the coming days! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 13:58, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
@Ktr101: sorry for the delay, but here's the message we've requested to be sent through MassMessage to the users who we'll be remove rights from. Feel free to adapt for your purposes! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:29, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, and I will get on doing that in the coming days! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:07, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
P.S. Adding @Kevin Gorman:, who no longer appears on the list of users with the course coordinator right that I drafted my previous list of pings from, but who has granted instructor rights in the past! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:53, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the message. I am fine with leaving the rights I've granted as they are, unless there's a problem with that. Is there? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 02:01, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
As with Bios, please leave my grants intact unless there is a problem. (I don't have +CC right now because my user rights were temmporarily stripped when my account was compromised and I just never bothered restoring it, sinc sysop covers everything +CC does. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:50, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
No problem with that at all. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:03, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
  • For a range of reasons this change creates problems and work burden on community volunteers. I think that that changes are good but here is a summary of objections:
  • A large time and financial investment was made into the old system. There is no point person responsible for managing its deprecation. It is being abandoned and the features of this system which are not in the new system are not scheduled for replacement. The old system was never documented.
  • Wiki Ed Foundation enjoys the privilege of community prominence on English Wikipedia despite permitting limited community representation in its activities and having limited community oversight. This is the nature of a project seeking change, and I support Wiki Ed, but I hope that it continually reaches out to community members for engagement.
  • Wiki Ed staff determine allowable use of the tools they provide, not the Wikimedia community. I am not aware of any other tool so dependent on access to the Wikipedia website which also has more discreet control than just an on/off switch. Right now the use of the Wiki Ed tool by projects not authorized by Wiki Ed is allowed in a sandbox test area, but there are no promises or social infrastructure in place to allow these tools to be used by any stakeholders other than Wiki Ed. This is a bit strange and brushes against conflict with the WP:FREE rule in WP:FIVE. I would like to see an equivalent tool set to what Wiki Ed uses for its own projects also made available to the Wikipedia community.
  • There remains a tension between the WMF and the WEF in that one promotes one set of tools and the other promotes the other. This kind of forking cannot go on forever. There are also significant ideological differences in what the WMF and WEF are trying to accomplish. Both groups seek to recruit volunteers to participate in their system, and neither system has good community representation to ensure that volunteers are participating in systems which are good for the community. It has always been the case that the metrics requested by staff are of limited use to volunteers who want to promote Wikipedia - I hope that all staff stakeholders will continue to pay close attention to any requests they make for volunteers to do work that benefits neither the volunteers nor the Wikimedia community, but rather only fulfill the staff's project reporting requirements.
I wholly support this transition and all future conversation about it. I have no reservations in saying that what is happening is a good thing for the Wikipedia community. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:45, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
@Bluerasberry: Thanks for sharing your concerns. I hope I can clear up one concern immediately: All our source code is released under a free license and shared on GitHub. We are absolutely committed to allowing others to use the software we develop for our programs if it suits their needs too.
What is out of the scope of our organization is hosting versions of the Dashboard for non-Wiki Ed groups to use. When we used the MediaWiki extension, it was hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, meaning any group could use it. But that also meant any feature enhancements needed to go through WMF's code review. Last summer, Wiki Ed hired a MediaWiki development firm to add some features to the EducationProgram extension to make it fit our needs, but we were never able to get WMF tech staff's time to push those features live. That is a huge roadblock for us, and taught us that our tools needed to be self-hosted, so we can push bug fixes and feature enhancements when we need to, rather than relying on WMF. Because of this, our Dashboards tool is hosted on wikiedu.org (but uses oAuth to mirror the content to Wikipedia). But it is out of our scope to host tools for other programs on wikiedu.org.
That doesn't mean other groups aren't able to and even encouraged to use our tools. Other groups simply need to self-host those tools, or install them on Labs. In fact, as I write this, Sage Ross is at the Wikimania Hackathon, focused on adapting the Dashboard for broader use, and helping community members install it on their own servers.
Finally, I don't see a real tension in tool development between Wiki Ed and the WMF. FKoudijs (WMF) promoted Sage's Hackathon session on their own channels, encouraging education program leaders to attend and start using the Dashboard. I'll also reiterate that Wiki Ed has no control over the EducationProgram MediaWiki extension itself; while we are deprecating our use of it, as far as I am aware, it will still be on and available for community members to use on the English Wikipedia. Someone from WMF may have more information on it than I do; this change is simply to discontinue Wiki Ed's use of it. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:59, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
LiAnna (Wiki Ed) Thanks. I have said enough on this for now and your response is as I would expect. I continue to be happy with everything that Wiki Ed does while always wanting more, and probably more than can be provided.
There is always room for more discussion. Neither Wiki Ed, nor the Wikimedia Foundation, nor the Wikimedia community have an established culture of outreach to universities and there are still many aspects of outreach which could be discussed if it ever happened that there was community interest in doing so.
I continue to wish for greatly increased engagement by university students in Wikimedia projects, and for this to happen during their routine coursework. I continue to believe that the most efficient way to increase and develop this engagement is with staff oversight in volunteer engagement.
The nature of wiki educational outreach in the United States has changed drastically every six months or so since its inception and I see no reason to believe things are becoming any more stable now, especially since what is to be the new normal will not start for a few months. For this reason, I personally would not speak so certainly as you do, but that hardly matters except that your confidence in the new ways seems bold to me. I look forward to changes. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:31, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation announces new board members, annual plan

The Wiki Education Foundation has announced two new board members today, Sue Gardner and Dr. Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer.

We've also announced our Annual Plan for the next fiscal year. You can review the highlights of that plan on our blog or read the entire plan here.

Thanks all!

Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:39, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/School_of_Shoe_Making_/Shoe_Making_(4) (instructor: User:Sufe)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Shoe Making. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Sufe (talk) 19:37, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: samplesite

Samplesite (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    To feel the joy of giving back something to a place where we have learnt.
  2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?
    I am from Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. I am currently enrolled at Andhra University College of Engineering and planning to work with as campus ambassador from the same.
  3. What is your academic and/or professional background?
    I am studying final year Electronics and Communications Engineering at Andhra University, Visakhapatnam.
  4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.
    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)
  5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)
Discussion


Campus Ambassador application: pratik.sirsat

116.75.14.2 (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    I feel as a council member of MIT Pune's campus, I must give maximum exposure to the Students of MIT Pune campus.

I have organized a national level literary fest in March 2015. I would strive hard to fulfil the roles and responsibilities as a campus ambassador of Wikipedia.

  1. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?
    I am based in Pune. I study in MIT College of Engineering, Pune. I plan to work as a campus ambassador for MIT pune Campus
  2. What is your academic and/or professional background?
    I have 60% aggregate in my engineering till now. I am a third year student of engineering. I am also the magazine head of college's annual magazine 'SPANDAN'.
  3. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.
    Till date, I haven't been associated with Wikimedia projects. As from now, I would be more actively participated in Wikimedia.
  4. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    I am organizer of national level literary fest MIT CREON. I have fluency in English, Hindi and Marathi. As a council Member, I influence a large crowd in MIT Pune Campus. This will surely be helpful for me to implement the Wikimedia Projects in college campus.
Discussion

Lots of courses in the archive

This page had a lot of text added just recently by a lot of courses being submitted. I archived them. See them at Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard/Archive_10#New_course_announcement:_M.C3.A9thodologie_universitaire_.281DATME11.29_.28instructor:_Mfvdietrich.29 and below. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:10, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Ed's Monthly Report for June is now available

Hello all, Just wanted to share our monthly report for June. It's available as a PDF, on-wiki, or on our blog. Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:56, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Rollins_College/Writing_about_Wikipedia_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:PCFleming05)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Writing about Wikipedia. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--PCFleming05 (talk) 17:46, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Rollins_College/Writing_about_Wikipedia_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:PCFleming05)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Writing about Wikipedia. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--PCFleming05 (talk) 17:46, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/North_Dakota_State_University/PSYC_480_History_and_Systems_of_Psychology_(Fall,_2015) (instructor: User:James Council)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, PSYC 480 History and Systems of Psychology. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--J.R. Council (talk) 19:01, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Stony_Brook_University/Health_Communication_(autumn_2015) (instructor: User:Bluerasberry)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Health Communication. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.-- Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:23, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Sage (Wiki Ed) I had asked you about markup for the Wiki Ed course creator. First I made Education Program:Stony Brook University/Health Communication (Autumn 2015), then I made the page above. As you can see, some of the content does not render there.
I have some questions -
  1. Is it correct that in the new Wiki Ed system, students never go to the Wiki Ed page, but instead should only visit this Wikipedia page?
    No. The on-wiki page is mainly intended for Wikipedians, so that there is a place on-wiki that has info about who is in the course, what the participants are assigned to do when, and which articles they are working on. But the intention is for the page on dashboard.wikiedu.org to be the main place for the instructors and students.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:29, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
  2. How do students enroll in a course?
    Once it is approved, you (as an instructor for that course) will see an enrollment url that can be distributed to students.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:29, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
  3. What happens if I edit the wiki-page made by the Wiki Ed tool? There is a warning to not do that, but it is difficult to edit the Wiki Ed interface and the changes I really want are cosmetic and on this English Wikipedia course page. Is the direction to edit in Wiki Ed a way to keep instructors away from Wikipedia's markup, or is there something more here?
    The main thing is that the dashboard simply overwrites that course page with the most up-to-date information each time it changes on dasbhoard.wikiedu.org. So any edits you make on that page will soon be overwitten. For now at least, the dashboard stores information in Markdown syntax (which it then converts to wikimarkup).--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:29, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
  4. What difference is there in analytics/metrics reporting when setting up a course page with the MW Course Extension then connecting it to Wiki Ed's dashboard versus setting up pages natively in dashboard?
    There isn't any difference. For legacy courses using the extension, the dashboard simply pulls in the list of students and their articles, and then does all the same calculations as it does for new courses where the list of students and articles is managed from the dashboard.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:29, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
  5. I am using Firefox as my browser and could report other settings. It seems like in Wiki Ed's dashboard I am unable to click my mouse anywhere in the editing textbox for setting up courses unless I do strange tricks to force it. This restricts editing and keeps default text in place by making editing difficult. Is that intentional and a feature of the product? I changed the recommended course structure a lot, so I think I am unusual in wanting to add so much customized text.
    The difficulty of editing those timeline blocks is a bug, which we're trying to work on soon.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:29, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
  6. Is it correct that there is no freeform box in Wiki Ed where if I had a class template, I could copy/paste a page and get a course outline? It seems like I have to only talk in blocks of weeks, and for example it was difficult to create the "before class" part of the assignment which had no particular start date and only ended when the first Wikipedia day began.
    Yeah, that's a limitation of the current version, and what you want to is a little outside of the use case we designed for. I hope to make things easier to use for both experienced editors and those unfamiliar with wiki markup, in the next iteration of the course editing interface. One option would be to include that content in the course description section (after the actual course description).--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:29, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:04, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
@Bluerasberry: See inline answers above. Regarding the rendering, we can probably fix many or most of the rendering issues by converting the wikitext to Markdown. It's tedious, as the interface isn't really built to handle freeform course pages that were original built in wikitext, but it should be possible. I'll do some quick things to see what I can fix easily.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:29, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
@Bluerasberry:: I converted the formatting so that it shows up correctly on the dashboard version (although now it does not render properly on the Wikipedia version). So now it should be in good shape to use as the main place for students to go.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
Sage (Wiki Ed) Thanks for this. I appreciate your doing this as an example of what is possible. I look forward to using the new tools. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:42, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_South_Florida/ENL6236_18thC_Women_Authors_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:LLRungegordon)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, ENL6236 18thC Women Authors. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--LLRungegordon (talk) 20:07, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Washington_University_in_St_Louis/Behavioral_Ecology,_Biology_472_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Agelaia)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Behavioral Ecology, Biology 472. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Agelaia (talk) 20:53, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Introduction to Women's Studies (instructor: Mosterbur)

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): --Mosterbur (talk) 17:37, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Black Politics (instructor: Mosterbur)

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): --Mosterbur (talk) 17:38, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Xavier_University_of_Louisiana/Black_Politics_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Mosterbur)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Black Politics. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Mosterbur (talk) 18:52, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Louisiana_State_University/Intro_to_WGS_Sec_2_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Transunicorn)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Intro to WGS Sec 2. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Transunicorn (talk) 00:37, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Louisiana_State_University/Intro_to_WGS_Sec_1_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Transunicorn)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Intro to WGS Sec 1. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Transunicorn (talk) 00:41, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Course coordinator application: Smirkybec

Name

Rebecca O'Neill User:Smirkybec

Institution

I'm an active member of the user group Wikimedia Community Ireland, and through this work a lecturer has been working with us on the possibility of using the Education Extension with her students at the University College Dublin (UCD).

Course title and description

Advanced Information Skills for Problem Solving (IS20010) is run through the School of Information and Communication Studies, with the module looking to develop students literacy and searching skills. The module requires students to research, in groups, the life history and genealogy of prominent figures in Irish History, in particular those related in the Decade of Centenaries (1912 to 1922). The aim is for the students to develop skills to find, evaluate, use, and manage information effectively in their studies, daily lives, and future careers in public and private enterprise. The element of writing the Wikipedia article forms part of this process, where the students learn to edit, write in an appropriate style, assess notability and suitable sources, as well as presenting their work to the other groups. The students are also encouraged to explore the full range of information formats, such as text, audio, and visual media. Some of the articles produced by the groups last year include the expansion of Rosie Hackett's article and the creation of Fiona Plunkett's.

As a member of Wikimedia Community Ireland, I will provide a training workshop for the students in early October, as well as being available for online help as their articles develop. I am currently working with the lecturer, Crystal Fulton, on a list of suitable historical figures for the groups to work on.

Number of students

approx 75, working in groups of 4 or 5

Start and end dates

09/2015-11/2015 (exact dates are not yet confirmed)

Additional note Our group have also been in contact with a lecturer in the University of Limerick who has used Wikipedia in the past as a teaching tool. We have suggested that they may be interested in using the Extension in this module also. It is for this reason that I have applied for Course Coordinator as I have offered to help facilitate the use of the extension with the lecturers involved. I have some experience of the Extension through my work with User:ToniSant and his use of Wikipedia at third level in the University of Hull.

Resolved
Smirkybec It was nice meeting you at Wikimania. I understand that you have talked with Pine and Peaceray at meta:Cascadia Wikimedians. The current standard to get userrights here is a little Wikipedia experience and sign off of two Wikipedians, and you have that. I am granting the userrights. I find these tools very helpful. Ask me if you need help using them, and do please stay in touch. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:48, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks very much for approving this so quickly! It was great to meet you too, almost feels like Wikimania was months ago already :) As this will be the first time that I will be using the tools on my own, I think I'll probably be contacting you in the coming weeks for a bit of support, if just so I don't make any rookie mistakes. Daunted, but really looking forward to using them. Thanks again Smirkybec (talk) 17:33, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Bainbridge_State_College/Introduction_to_General_Psychology_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:ProfSoicher)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Introduction to General Psychology. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--ProfSoicher (talk) 16:24, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Xavier_University_of_Louisiana/Introduction_to_Women's_Studies-Online_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Mosterbur)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Introduction to Women's Studies-Online. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Mosterbur (talk) 19:17, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/LaGuardia_Community_College/ENG103_Octavia_Butler's_Wild_Seed_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Doctorxgc)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, ENG103 Octavia Butler's Wild Seed. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--DrX (talk) 20:50, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_British_Columbia/ASTU260_(Summer_2015) (instructor: User:Wmengle)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, ASTU260. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Wmengle (talk) 22:50, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Future of this noticeboard, user rights, and classroom outreach

Here is a summary of the current status of educational outreach in English Wikipedia:

  • The "Wikipedia education program" is a Wikimedia community project to encourage students in classes to contribute to Wikimedia projects while doing their routine educational activities. Instances of the "Wikipedia education program" are individual classes which participate in the project.
  • The Wikimedia Foundation has a division which it calls the Wikipedia Education Program, is a group of paid staff who lightly support some volunteers in bringing Wikimedia projects to schools.
  • Wiki Ed Foundation, a nonprofit organization independent of the Wikimedia Foundation, has paid staff which routinely support all university classes in the United States and Canada which participate in Wikimedia
  • To my knowledge, no one in the Wikimedia Foundation or the Wikipedia Education Program group actively do anything on English Wikipedia regarding educational outreach. Last contact with the WMF was in about 2013 by staff who are now at Wiki Ed.
  • There is a software suite described at mw:Extension:Education Program which is installed on English Wikipedia. This is a very useful application for supporting groups of Wikimedia contributors, but parts of it are broken and paid staff attention is required to use it. No paid staff have been supporting this for English Wikipedia since 2013 or longer.
  • Associated with the Education Extension, there are a set of userrights called "campus ambassador", "online ambassador", "instructor", and "course coordinator". On English Wikipedia, the WMF and Wiki Ed used to partner with the community in using these rights. Experience and practice has proven that these rights are almost never used effectively, or even at all, without staff support and oversight, or at least, without a connection to someone else who had staff support and oversight. The most common kind of participation is "online ambassador" participation in a course page started by someone else.
  • No one is actively developing training, documentation, outreach, or community discussion materials on the English Wikipedia for the WMF's Wikipedia Education Program
  • The Wiki Ed Foundation has a new software suite at http://dashboard.wikiedu.org/ for courses which they support.
  • Wiki Ed also has a copy of their software suite for anyone's use at http://dashboard-testing.wikiedu.org/. Anyone can use this.

Here are some current issues to address concerning educational outreach and this noticeboard as it is now. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:14, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments and framing this discussion, Blue Rasberry. I apologize for my team not acknowledging this thread earlier, but it only recently came to my attention as our team lead FKoudijs (WMF) is on vacation. In her stead, and for the rest of the WMF education team, I’m happy to clarify our thinking about a few things:
  • With regards to program support, our team has a global focus. We support community led initiatives in many different countries that contribute to many different projects. While it may be perceived as light support, we have a broad range of programs that we work with (from individuals to chapter-run initiatives).
  • We encourage programs to work with the communities of their particular language/project for things like the education extension and any requisite user rights. We do not typically grant any rights, unless it’s in coordination with the community. (My WMF colleagues and I have typically seen our role as commenting/supporting certain requests, not fulfilling them.)
  • We encourage the use of the extension so far as it’s a useful tool for organizing and tracking a cohort of users on-wiki. Our team sadly has no capacity for tech development, and we are eager to see other tools developed like the Wiki Ed dashboard (and getting people hacking/internationalizing it, as is mentioned elsewhere).
  • The WMF education team supports community members and program leaders to do outreach in their local communities (for example, if you need brochures, we can ship you some).
  • Specifically for English Wikipedia, we understand there are programs and initiatives outside the scope of Wiki Ed’s US and Canada university focus. While English Wikipedia is generally not a priority for our team, we are happy to offer support as appropriate and possible. A good starting point is always the Education Portal on Outreach, or the recently launched Education Program Toolkit on Meta.
I hope this is helpful, and of course we defer to any community consensus around specific tools and rights changes. TFlanagan-WMF (talk) 17:33, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
TFlanagan-WMF Everything that you describe is what I expected. Sorry for not signaling you about this - so far as I know, no one at the WMF has ever participated in community discussion about education on English Wikipedia so I did not think to alert you.
Thanks for doing what you do. I am here if you need anything - just ask. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:06, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to quit soliciting for volunteers to get education extension rights

In January 2015 I had solicited comments about granting userrights to use the WMF extension on English Wikipedia. The discussion was light, but I think there was consensus that anyone who got one of the userrights could have any of the others, if they like. I began this discussion in the context of Wiki Ed no longer having formal affiliations with Wikimedia community volunteers as designated ambassadors. A new development in this is that as of July 2015, Wiki Ed now also does not grant instructor rights to professors.

This means that on English Wikipedia, whereas formerly either or both the WMF or Wiki Ed had staff support for Wikimedia community volunteers who used the education extension, now neither do and neither have plans to in the future.

Frequently, perhaps several times a month over the past few years, volunteers have gone to Wikipedia:Education program/Ambassadors to request userrights. Most volunteers who get the right never do anything with it. There is no documentation by means of which anyone can learn the application, and it is not intuitive. People can learn it by experience or being taught the application by someone else.

It is a waste of volunteer time to advertise that these rights are available when no courses routinely use them. It is a waste of time for volunteers here to review applications for the rights.

I propose these changes -

  1. Keep education extension active, and...
  2. Grant access to all education extension userrights to anyone who requests them (which is a change from requiring minimal review)
  3. Deprecate all advertisements which direct people to apply for userrights (which is a change from actively soliciting for people to volunteer here)

This board as it is now cannot support volunteers who casually request the rights. Anyone who wants to commit to using them can and should, and they could even request them here, but otherwise - they should ask because they think to ask and not because they saw notices directing them to request the userrights. We should not solicit more volunteers into this. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:14, 30 July 2015 (UTC) Between 2012-July 2015, there used to be paid staff in place to support users who used education extension userrights on English Wikipedia. As of July 2015, neither the Wikimedia Foundation nor the Wiki Ed Foundation provide this support anymore. There used to be community consensus that Wikipedia community volunteers should be solicited to request these userrights. Since there is no staff support in place, I propose to quit soliciting that volunteers should request these userrights. In a more discreet way, I would support these rights being granted for anyone who wants to use the powerful tools which they make available, just so long as people understand that the almost essential staff support required to train people for these tools is no longer available. Thoughts from others? Can we quit offering these tools routinely? Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:13, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to quit posting Wiki Ed Foundation notices of courses here

Previously this board was a place for volunteers to meet instructors to partner in classroom outreach.

As discussed above, there has been a transition over the past few years that the WMF and Wiki Ed have lessed the depth of relationships with Wikimedia community volunteers in favor of increasing the amount of paid staff support to classes. So far as I know, everyone has agreed that the use of paid staff support leads to better outcomes and higher satisfaction in all ways that people measure.

This noticeboard was started as a community place. While it was a community place, it seemed right that courses which were contributing to Wikipedia should be advertised here. Lately, though, there has been the problem that the board is getting two posts which are confusing to the community and not easy for most people to understand. One kind of confusing post is requests for userrights, as discussed above, and the other confusing post is notices of Wiki Ed courses. I appreciate that Wiki Ed courses are announced to English Wikipedia, but I think they should be announced somewhere else for the Wiki Ed Foundation and not mixed here with community volunteer business.

Here are some reasons why Wiki Ed courses should not be announced here -

  • Courses can be easily announced in another place. If anyone cares, they can simply watchlist some other page which hosts these.
  • Wiki Ed is unusual among Wikipedia projects for using paid staff rather than volunteers to manage their affairs. What they do is a big help to Wikipedia, but there is no presented path to community partnership.
  • When Wiki Ed does partner, they do so in a limited way. English Wikipedia is a place for promoting English Wikipedia content. Wiki Ed restricts their support to the United States and Canada, so classes and volunteers in England, India and elsewhere are out of the scope of what they can support. Because there is no documentation which explains the rights and options for different people in different countries to access various tools, for now, it is best to not advertise here things which are not universally offered.
  • Announcing Wiki Ed classes has always been a low-value service. This was started as a courtesy, but the course announcements have not ever started productive discussion so far as I know.
  • Keeping this board clear of bot-generated text makes it a more friendly place for human discussion.

Thoughts? Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:28, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Speaking for the Wiki Education Foundation: We’re certainly open to any consensus that arises from this discussion. Our course page posts to the Education Noticeboard are intended to increase transparency and awareness of those courses, but we’re happy to move announcements to a subpage if that's the consensus. Thanks for putting time and care into these proposals, Bluerasberry. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:42, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
It is good that you want to increase the awareness, but please be advised that the announcements here reach a minuscule number of people. I found this page only by a sheer luck persistence and skill of a seasoned wikipedian who know how to search. Still, I am far way from finding what I actually want. I see that some talk pages have notices saying this article is within the scope of edu program. But it is an incomplete "database" connectivity", so to say. If I want to find a particular program which handles certain topic, or even which is handled by a certain college, then I am lost. Specifically, the edu programs I've browsed, e.g., Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Rollins_College/Writing_about_Wikipedia_(Fall_2015) are uncategorized. Thus, seeing the edu assignment notice in Talk:Informal_sector a cannot find similar ones. I also suspect that there are no lists of edu programs in wikipedia (are there any?). If there is a growing tendency to part ways of Wiki Ed and WMF, so be it. But then I agree with User:Bluerasberry, if you say A, you say B, and just make you own message board. Otherwise, if you are using our space and want any "productive discussion", please follow wikipedia tradition of navigation: categories, cross-linking, lists, etc. - üser:Altenmann >t 21:48, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
Altenmann As you say, there is no list for educational programs in Wikipedia. There never has been. There is also no process for creating a list. At Special:Institutions, the Wikimedia Foundation's tool automatically generates a list by institution, but not by time, country, or subject. Also, no classes in the United States are likely to be listed here from autumn 2015, although classes in Europe may continue to be. I would like for there to be an international list of all classes sortable by time (especially "all current classes") and subject but we are not there yet.
There used to be more of a community here but it fell off for various reasons. I am not sure what the future relationship between the Wikimedia community and universities will be. Thanks a lot for commenting here - I would like to make this more of a place where typical Wikipedians can meaningfully respond to what is posted here. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:52, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
Re: "fell off for various reasons... relationship between the Wikimedia community and universities will be": Can it be that the goals of wikipedia and universities are different? The little fact that there is neither lists nor categories I mentioned means that the academe does not really care about cooperation with wikipedians. In any case the amount of wikipedia's content grows. And the quality does not decrease. Is there any research about the impact of the university programs? Heck, is there any integration of this stuff into wikipedia net? Even this page is only in categories "Categories (++): Wikipedia noticeboards (−) (±)Wikipedia requests for comment" If it is a "walled garden," then no wonder "it fell off". Interests of people change; old people are gone, new people even don't know that you exist. - üser:Altenmann >t 01:32, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
P.S. Sorry for the pessimistic tone of my posts. I came here with some questions and ideas (about some specific wikipedia content, not about how to teach you how to live :-), but I am just frustrated. - üser:Altenmann >t 01:35, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
Altenmann I think your views are correct. Here are the stakeholders. None of them work well with the others - WMF, Wiki Ed, Wikimedia community, the volunteers who trained for Wikipedia Education Program, university stakeholders, and Wikipedia readers. It is fine to be pessimistic - this project has had mixed results for a long time.
The best reporting and documentation exists at Wiki Edu's blog. Personally, I am convinced that the education program results in lots of good content being added to Wikipedia with minimal hassle or disruption of the Wikimedia community's routine activities. There have been some disasters but I think now it is much harder for there to be a disaster because so many more professors and classes are pushed much harder into training and talking to a human on the phone contributing to Wikipedia.
Yes, academia does not really want to play by Wikipedia's rules, but when asked they are almost always willing to compromise even when things do not make sense to them. I have been touched by the willingness of classes to try to accommodate Wikipedians.
I am not sure that "walled garden" is the best way to describe this project. "Dangerous wild jungle garden" might be the better description because everyone has been invited here but Wikimedia volunteers needed to learn a lot and commit a lot of time in order to work with students in classes, plus it felt horrible when things went wrong.
Old people are gone but I would like to clean up this project and invite Wikipedians to comment here. Lots of classes still participate and finding a way to categorize them and give Wikipedians better access would help. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:06, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to allow administrators grant education extension userrights

Right now, there is a userright called "course coordinator". Course coordinators can grant the education extension userrights. Administrators and bureaucrats can also, even though to my knowledge none of them ever have because historically they have left that to course coordinators. I am a course coordinator and maybe there are about 10 others - I do not know where to find the list of course coordinators.

Above, I propose to quit routinely soliciting for people to request education extension userrights. Still, I do not want to restrict anyone from getting these rights if they wish to have them. I propose to tell Wikipedia's bureaucrats and administrators that if they like, they can give anyone the education extension userrights as they like on request.

The tools are broadly useful to anyone who wants to support a group of Wikipedians and who wishes to learn the interface. Again, because the tools are not documented, not being developed, without necessary staff support, broken in many ways, and not scheduled to ever be fixed or supported, I would not advertise that people should use them. Still, if someone wants them, then they should have them, and I would like to tell administrators to give them out.

Thoughts? Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:39, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_Toronto,_Mississauga/WGS_455_Queer_Theory_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Brownels)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, WGS 455 Queer Theory. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Brownels (talk) 14:12, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Rochester_Institute_of_Technology/American_Women's_History_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Tamar Carroll)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, American Women's History. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Tamar Carroll (talk) 19:37, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: KennyHBrown

KennyHBrown (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    On our campus, several faculty from different departments have used Wikipedia in their classes in different ways. Our current dean of faculty thought we should have a campus Wikipedia Ambassador to coordinate and assist more faculty who are interested in using Wikipedia related assignments. She thought someone from the library, since we work with students and faculty from across the campus, would be an appropriate candidate, so I thought since I am a reference and instruction librarian who has worked with faculty and students who have done Wikipedia projects before, I would be a good candidate. In addition, I have worked with many faculty designing, and many students working on, other assignments that are alternatives to traditional standard research papers, such as writing literature reviews, writing articles for subject specific or general encyclopedias, creating poster sessions or web sites, comparing scholarly and popular treatments of a topic, tracking an academic article's references and evaluating how the author used those sources, and many others, so I am an advocate of using creative assignments such as creating and editing Wikipedia articles. Before we thought of the idea of having a campus Wikipedia Ambassador, I had not worked directly in Wikipedia as an editor, I had only worked with students who were editing on Wikipedia by helping them find and evaluate possible articles to work on, find appropriate academic sources to cite, etc., working with them on content to include in their articles and edits but not on the mechanics of actually editing and working with other editors. So I created an account for myself last spring and I have worked on learning my way around so I could learn the particulars of editing and contributing in Wikipedia. Beyond just learning how editing works, I've gained a greater appreciation for all the work editors have put into creating Wikipedia. I have used Wikipedia plenty in the past, so I'm enjoying adding content which I hope others will find useful. What I have learned so far will definitely help me better assist students working on Wikipedia assignments, but additional privileges for Ambassadors such as creating course pages would allow me to help even more.
  2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?
    I am currently Interim Head of Reference in the library at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. I plan to be Campus Ambassador for any/all interested faculty at Wesleyan.
  3. What is your academic and/or professional background?
    I have been a reference/instruction librarian at Wesleyan for 18 years; previous to that, I was a reference and government documents librarian at Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin for 3 years. In addition to an MLS from SUNY Buffalo, I have an MA in philosophy from Emory University, and a bachelors degree in philosophy (with a mathematics minor) from Vanderbilt University.
  4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.
    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)
  5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

KennyHBrown (talk) 23:40, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/SUNY_Oneonta/Civil_Rights_and_Liberties_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Boolean lint)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, Civil Rights and Liberties. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Boolean lint (talk) 18:38, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_Nebraska-Lincoln/English_254_Writing_and_Communities_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Daclausen)

I have created a new course at dashboard.wikiedu.org, English 254 Writing and Communities. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Daclausen (talk) 20:55, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_Minnesota_-_Morris/Media_and_Politics_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Flyingtable83)

I have created a new course — Media and Politics — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/University_of_Minnesota_-_Morris/Media_and_Politics_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Flyingtable83 (talk) 19:22, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: pcwendland

Pcwendland (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    My department at my university has recently started using Wikipedia editing and content creation as a supplement to normal coursework, but many of our faculty members aren't very familiar with how to wikify an article or aren't well-versed in technology to begin with. I see huge potential in familiarizing students with how Wikipedia articles are created and maintained, but some of the professors could use some guidance on how to best do this. I could help connect faculty and students with the resources — both online and in person — necessary to improve their classroom use of Wikipedia. In addition to the technical aspects of incorporating it into coursework, I also want to help explain that the all-too-common view of Wikipedia as a terrible source is far from the truth; though citing a Wikipedia article in a research paper obviously isn't something I would do, Wikipedia typically my first stop to understand the basics of a topic and find multiple sources that go into more depth about it. Having this free source of information has helped me immensely, both in formal academic pursuits and in helping me learn about all sorts of things that interest me. I hope to encourage students to become more involved in and see the benefit of free and open access resources, via both Wikimedia projects and other organizations.
  2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?
    I am just starting my fourth (and last) year at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC, but I also plan to attend graduate school (university to be determined).
  3. What is your academic and/or professional background?
    I have one year left for my bachelor's in food science with a minor in microbiology. I have experience working in labs focusing on food microbes, soil microbes, crop yields, biofuel, and more, and I'm incredibly passionate about my studies. I was also raised by a grammar and spelling fanatic and a researcher, so I have quite the affinity for proper grammar and style and solid citations.
  4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.
    Many of my edits are short and sweet - spelling, grammar, and errors; citation needed tags; reversion of spam/vandalism; etc. However, it's the "nitty gritty" of Wikipedia that I think I like most, and that is what I hope to focus on with our faculty. Having uniform formatting and citation guidelines is important in creating a cohesive online encyclopedia, and doing so helps maintain a reputation for accuracy and consistent style.
  5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    I think most of what I want to say is covered above!
Discussion

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/North_Dakota_State_Univsersity/Mineralogy_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:The-prospector)

I have created a new course — Mineralogy — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/North_Dakota_State_Univsersity/Mineralogy_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--The Prospector (talk) 21:25, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_Alberta,_Augustana_Campus/Psychology_of_Language_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Marentette)

I have created a new course — Psychology of Language — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/University_of_Alberta,_Augustana_Campus/Psychology_of_Language_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Marentette (talk) 16:10, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Ohio_University/Writing_in_the_Life_Sciences_(Fall) (instructor: User:JoeyJack)

I have created a new course — Writing in the Life Sciences — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Ohio_University/Writing_in_the_Life_Sciences_(Fall). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--JoeyJack (talk) 16:28, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Mercer_County_Community_College/Introduction_to_Sociology_-_SOC_101H_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Gdfinley)

I have created a new course — Introduction to Sociology - SOC 101H — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Mercer_County_Community_College/Introduction_to_Sociology_-_SOC_101H_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Gdfinley (talk) 21:11, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Saint_Louis_University/Evolutionary_Biology,_3010-02_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Evol&Glass)

I have created a new course — Evolutionary Biology, 3010-02 — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Saint_Louis_University/Evolutionary_Biology,_3010-02_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Evol&Glass (talk) 21:14, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/UCLA/ProSem_in_Social_Psychology_(Fall) (instructor: User:Benkarney)

I have created a new course — ProSem in Social Psychology — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/UCLA/ProSem_in_Social_Psychology_(Fall). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Benkarney (talk) 23:11, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Saint_Louis_University/Evolutionary_Biology_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Amille75)

I have created a new course — Evolutionary Biology — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Saint_Louis_University/Evolutionary_Biology_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Amille75 (talk) 12:24, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_Oklahoma/Geisha_and_Gangsters_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Elyssafaison)

I have created a new course — Geisha and Gangsters — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/University_of_Oklahoma/Geisha_and_Gangsters_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Elyssafaison (talk) 18:12, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/SUNY_Plattsburgh/Cell_Biology_with_Lab,_Bio_401_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Jparcoeur)

I have created a new course — Cell Biology with Lab, Bio 401 — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/SUNY_Plattsburgh/Cell_Biology_with_Lab,_Bio_401_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Jparcoeur (talk) 22:01, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/California_State_University,_Fullerton/Gender_and_Technoculture_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:DaltonHird)

I have created a new course — Gender and Technoculture — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/California_State_University,_Fullerton/Gender_and_Technoculture_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Dalton D. Hird 02:58, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_Oklahoma/Science,_Nature_and_Society_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Voxcanis)

I have created a new course — Science, Nature and Society — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/University_of_Oklahoma/Science,_Nature_and_Society_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Voxcanis (talk) 02:55, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Environmental_Economics/Econ_310_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Cubfan29)

I have created a new course — Econ 310 — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Environmental_Economics/Econ_310_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Cubfan29 (talk) 17:35, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Drake_University/Global_Youth_Studies_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Prof.Vandegrift)

I have created a new course — Global Youth Studies — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Drake_University/Global_Youth_Studies_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Prof.Vandegrift (talk) 18:16, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Rice_University/Poverty,_Justice,_and_Capabilities_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:DStrassmann)

I have created a new course — Poverty, Justice, and Capabilities — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Rice_University/Poverty,_Justice,_and_Capabilities_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--DStrassmann (talk) 19:39, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation Monthly Report for July now available

Wiki Ed's Monthly Report for July is available as a PDF, on-wiki, and on our blog. Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:47, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/McDaniel_College/Writing_in_the_Disciplines_Art_and_Art_History_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:ByzantineEmpress)

I have created a new course — Writing in the Disciplines Art and Art History — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/McDaniel_College/Writing_in_the_Disciplines_Art_and_Art_History_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--ByzantineEmpress (talk) 00:40, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Rutgers_University-Camden/Writing_New_Media_(Fall_15) (instructor: User:Colbuendia71)

I have created a new course — Writing New Media — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Rutgers_University-Camden/Writing_New_Media_(Fall_15). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Colbuendia71 (talk) 13:11, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

course coordinator application

Name: Crystal Fulton, username: fanowiki

Institution: University College Dublin, School of Information & Communication (formerly School of Information & Library Studies)

Course title and description:

IS20010: Advanced Information Skills

This module challenges students to develop information literacy skills that will make them super searchers. As they construct the genealogies of prominent figures in Irish history (e.g., associated with events around the 1913 Lockout, 1916 Rising, the Women's Suffrage Movement, etc.), students will develop essential skills to find, evaluate, use, and manage information effectively in their studies, daily lives, and future careers in public and private enterprise. Exploring information in a range of formats, including text, audio, and visual media, students will gain practical experience with different information resources, as well as opportunities to assess critically the connections between the theoretical underpinnings relevant to our cognitive and affective information behaviour and our interaction with information.

Last year, we were very lucky to have our students' work included in Wikipedia. Working with Rebecca, we helped the students create bios of various historical figures and to add this content to Wikipedia.

I am working with Rebecca O'Neill on this project and she has applied for a space for my students as well at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard/Archive_10#Course_coordinator_application:_Smirkybec. Rebecca is helping us with technical issues and will be providing ongoing advice to my students during the semester.

Number of students: Registration of 70-75 is anticipated. Because we are in the midst of registration at the moment, we are relying on an estimate based on last year's registration.

Start and End dates September 9-November 27, 2015.

All bios must be completed by the students by November 27th, 2015. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fanowiki (talk • contribs) 16:12, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Louisiana_State_University/HNRS_1035_Natural_disturbance_and_society_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:BCarmichael)

I have created a new course — HNRS 1035 Natural disturbance and society — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Louisiana_State_University/HNRS_1035_Natural_disturbance_and_society_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--BCarmichael (talk) 19:51, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_Maryland,_College_Park/Women_in_Medieval_Culture_and_Society_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:HIST495jb)

I have created a new course — Women in Medieval Culture and Society — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/University_of_Maryland,_College_Park/Women_in_Medieval_Culture_and_Society_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--HIST495jb (talk) 00:47, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Kansas_City_Art_Institute/Western_Art_I_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Prosekc)

I have created a new course — Western Art I — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Kansas_City_Art_Institute/Western_Art_I_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Prosekc (talk) 02:35, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Louisiana_State_University/ENVS_1127_Honors_Introduction_to_Environmental_Sciences_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:VLWilson77)

I have created a new course — ENVS 1127 Honors Introduction to Environmental Sciences — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Louisiana_State_University/ENVS_1127_Honors_Introduction_to_Environmental_Sciences_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--VLWilson77 (talk) 03:00, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/LSU/Prokaryotic_Diversity_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Gdawgme)

I have created a new course — Prokaryotic Diversity — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/LSU/Prokaryotic_Diversity_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Gdawgme (talk) 04:21, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_California,_San_Francisco/Expanding_WikiProject_Medicine_(Fall_Block_3) (instructor: User:AminMDMA)

I have created a new course — Expanding WikiProject Medicine — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/University_of_California,_San_Francisco/Expanding_WikiProject_Medicine_(Fall_Block_3). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--AminMDMA 06:11, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_California,_Berkeley/JMP_Expanding_Wikiproject_Medicine_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:AminMDMA)

I have created a new course — JMP Expanding Wikiproject Medicine — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/University_of_California,_Berkeley/JMP_Expanding_Wikiproject_Medicine_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--AminMDMA 06:51, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/New_College_of_Florida/Music_and_the_Evironment_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Maribeth Clark)

I have created a new course — Music and the Evironment — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/New_College_of_Florida/Music_and_the_Evironment_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Maribeth Clark (talk) 13:18, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Kaohsiung_American_School/Global_Studies_and_Diplomacy_(Semester_1_) (instructor: User:AbarrowKAS)

I have created a new course — Global Studies and Diplomacy — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Kaohsiung_American_School/Global_Studies_and_Diplomacy_(Semester_1_). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--AbarrowKAS (talk) 14:51, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_North_Carolina_at_Chapel_Hill/Developmental_Psychopathology--PSYC_500_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Eyoungstrom)

I have created a new course — Developmental Psychopathology--PSYC 500 — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/University_of_North_Carolina_at_Chapel_Hill/Developmental_Psychopathology--PSYC_500_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Prof. Eric A. Youngstrom (talk) 17:17, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Society_for_Marine_Mammalogy/Marine_Mammal_WikiSprint_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Jami (Wiki Ed))

I have created a new course — Marine Mammal WikiSprint — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Society_for_Marine_Mammalogy/Marine_Mammal_WikiSprint_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:59, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_South_Florida/Intro_to_Literature_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Farrar80)

I have created a new course — Intro to Literature — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/University_of_South_Florida/Intro_to_Literature_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Farrar80 (talk) 19:07, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Hobart_and_William_Smith_Colleges/WMST_300_Feminist_Theory_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:BettyMBayer)

I have created a new course — WMST 300 Feminist Theory — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Hobart_and_William_Smith_Colleges/WMST_300_Feminist_Theory_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--BettyMBayer (talk) 20:16, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Providence_College/English_101-005_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Friarprof)

I have created a new course — English 101-005 — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Providence_College/English_101-005_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Friarprof (talk) 21:28, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/North_Carolina_State_University/Object_Oriented_Design_and_Development_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Achandr9)

I have created a new course — Object Oriented Design and Development — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/North_Carolina_State_University/Object_Oriented_Design_and_Development_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Achandr9 (talk) 21:57, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_Alaska_Southeast/Introduction_to_American_Government_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:GlennDanielWright)

I have created a new course — Introduction to American Government — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/University_of_Alaska_Southeast/Introduction_to_American_Government_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Handlebar (talk) 23:08, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: pcwendland

Pcwendland (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    My department at my university has recently started using Wikipedia editing and content creation as a supplement to normal coursework, but many of our faculty members aren't very familiar with how to wikify an article or aren't well-versed in technology to begin with. I see huge potential in familiarizing students with how Wikipedia articles are created and maintained, but some of the professors could use some guidance on how to best do this. I could help connect faculty and students with the resources — both online and in person — necessary to improve their classroom use of Wikipedia. In addition to the technical aspects of incorporating it into coursework, I also want to help explain that the all-too-common view of Wikipedia as a terrible source is far from the truth; though citing a Wikipedia article in a research paper obviously isn't something I would do, Wikipedia typically my first stop to understand the basics of a topic and find multiple sources that go into more depth about it. Having this free source of information has helped me immensely, both in formal academic pursuits and in helping me learn about all sorts of things that interest me. I hope to encourage students to become more involved in and see the benefit of free and open access resources, via both Wikimedia projects and other organizations.
  2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?
    I am just starting my fourth (and last) year at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC, but I also plan to attend graduate school (university to be determined).
  3. What is your academic and/or professional background?
    I have one year left for my bachelor's in food science with a minor in microbiology. I have experience working in labs focusing on food microbes, soil microbes, crop yields, biofuel, and more, and I'm incredibly passionate about my studies. I was also raised by a grammar and spelling fanatic and a researcher, so I have quite the affinity for proper grammar and style and solid citations.
  4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.
    Many of my edits are short and sweet - spelling, grammar, and errors; citation needed tags; reversion of spam/vandalism; etc. However, it's the "nitty gritty" of Wikipedia that I think I like most, and that is what I hope to focus on with our faculty. Having uniform formatting and citation guidelines is important in creating a cohesive online encyclopedia, and doing so helps maintain a reputation for accuracy and consistent style.
  5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    I think most of what I want to say is covered above!
Discussion

Tolenas Elementary School

We have what appears to be an elementary teacher getting ready to have her class try to build out a page about their school. It would be good is someone familiar with the WP educational programs contact her before she starts hitting pitfalls. A couple of problems I see already: 1) Elementary schools are not inherently notable, so she may encounter issues with that. Also 2) she has created an "under construction" page at the school's name, and such pages are not normally allowed for any length of time. I've left the page untouched for now, so that someone more used to dealing with educators can be the one to handle the situation. - TexasAndroid (talk) 13:27, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Duke_University/Evolution_of_Animal_Behavior_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Erm22)

I have created a new course — Evolution of Animal Behavior — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Duke_University/Evolution_of_Animal_Behavior_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Erm22 (talk) 17:41, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Austin_College/Hollywood_Stars_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:DrCoppleSmith)

I have created a new course — Hollywood Stars — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Austin_College/Hollywood_Stars_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--DrCoppleSmith (talk) 18:30, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/California_State_University,_Long_Beach/Feminist_Debates_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Muedemum)

I have created a new course — Feminist Debates — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/California_State_University,_Long_Beach/Feminist_Debates_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Muedemum (talk) 18:50, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Middle_Georgia_State_University/English_Composition_1_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Pindham)

I have created a new course — English Composition 1 — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Middle_Georgia_State_University/English_Composition_1_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Pindham (talk) 03:03, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Georgetown_University/CommunicationTheory_and_Frameworks_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Turnj)

I have created a new course — CommunicationTheory and Frameworks — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Georgetown_University/CommunicationTheory_and_Frameworks_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Turnj (talk) 00:28, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Yale_University/Beyond_Representative_Government_(fall_2015) (instructor: User:Asterisque2015)

I have created a new course — Beyond Representative Government — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Yale_University/Beyond_Representative_Government_(fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Asterisque2015 (talk) 04:05, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Hunter_College/Translation_Theory_and_Practice-_Spanish-English_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Clasesdehunter)

I have created a new course — Translation Theory and Practice- Spanish-English — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Hunter_College/Translation_Theory_and_Practice-_Spanish-English_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Clasesdehunter (talk) 15:01, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Middle_Georgia_State_University/World_Literature_1_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Pindham)

I have created a new course — World Literature 1 — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Middle_Georgia_State_University/World_Literature_1_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Pindham (talk) 15:52, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Middle_Georgia_State_University/American_Literature_1_(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Pindham)

I have created a new course — American Literature 1 — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Middle_Georgia_State_University/American_Literature_1_(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Pindham (talk) 16:08, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Carnegie_Mellon_University/Communication_in_Groups_and_Organizations__(Fall_2015) (instructor: User:Robertekraut)

I have created a new course — Communication in Groups and Organizations — at dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Carnegie_Mellon_University/Communication_in_Groups_and_Organizations__(Fall_2015). If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course page.--Robertekraut (talk) 19:43, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

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