Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Saint Mary's College of California/Accounting Communication Lab (Fall 2017)
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- Course name
- Accounting Communication Lab
- Institution
- Saint Mary's College of California
- Instructor
- Sarah Vital
- Wikipedia Expert
- Shalor (Wiki Ed)
- Subject
- Accounting
- Course dates
- 2017-10-04 00:00:00 UTC – 2017-10-25 23:59:59 UTC
- Approximate number of student editors
- 30
A writing course for accounting students. Content of this semester includes clear and concise editing and informative writing.
Timeline
Week 1
- Course meetings
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- Wednesday, 4 October 2017
- In class - Introduction to the Wikipedia project
Welcome to your Wikipedia project's course timeline. This page will guide you through the Wikipedia project for your course. Be sure to check with your instructor to see if there are other pages you should be following as well.
Your course has also been assigned a Wikipedia Content Expert. Check your Talk page for notes from them. You can also reach them through the "Get Help" button on this page.
To get started, please review the following handouts:
- Editing Wikipedia pages 1–5
- Evaluating Wikipedia
- Assignment - Get started on Wikipedia
- Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you. (To avoid hitting Wikipedia's account creation limits, this is best done outside of class. Only 6 new accounts may be created per day from the same IP address.)
- It's time to dive into Wikipedia. Below, you'll find the first set of online trainings you'll need to take. New modules will appear on this timeline as you get to new milestones. Be sure to check back and complete them! Incomplete trainings will be reflected in your grade.
Week 2
- Course meetings
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- Monday, 9 October 2017 | Wednesday, 11 October 2017
- Assignment - Copyedit an article
Choose an article from the list of Wikipedia articles needing copy edits. Read through it and think about ways to improve the language, such as fixing grammatical errors or excessive wordiness. Then, make the appropriate changes. You don’t need to contribute new information to the article.
- Assignment - Add a citation
The Citation Hunt tool shows unreferenced statements from articles. Search for an article related to accounting with a "citation needed" annotation. When you find one, first evaluate whether the statement in question is true! An uncited statement could just be lacking a reference or it could be inaccurate or misleading. Find a reliable source on the subject and choose whether to add it as a citation or if you'll need to correct the statement.
- Assignment - Evaluate a Wikipedia article
It's time to think critically about Wikipedia articles. You'll evaluate a Wikipedia article related to the course and leave suggestions for improving it on the article's Talk page.
- Complete the "Evaluating Articles and Sources" training (linked below).
- Create a section in your sandbox titled "Article evaluation" where you'll leave notes about your observations and learnings.
- Choose an article on Wikipedia related to your course to read and evaluate. Maybe skip ahead to week 3 and choose one of the accounting stubs to evaluate. As you read, consider the following questions (but don't feel limited to these):
- Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
- Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
- Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
- Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?
- Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
- Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
- Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
- How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
- How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?
- Optional: Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback with four tildes — Bpl3 (talk) 17:12, 23 October 2017 (UTC).
Week 3
- Course meetings
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- Monday, 16 October 2017 | Wednesday, 18 October 2017
- Assignment - Add to an article
The following are two examples of current, well-written Wikipedia articles for accounting topics.
Notice how they are organized. Specific headings outline the content. References cleary lead back to original articles. Related articles are listed under “See also.” Appropropriate external links are included.
Now, see this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant_purchasing_power_accounting
See the concerns the Wikipedia community has flagged. Notice the lengthiness and unclear outline. Very few references outside of the Framework for the Preparation and Presentation of Financial Statements are mentioned.
As I am sure you have used Wikipedia to quickly review background information, you’ll see the value the first two examples have over the third.
Now, look through the Wikipedia articles on the "Accounting stubs" list; these are articles that need more development.
Chose one of these articles to develop and "claim" that article by signing up on this Google spreadsheet form by 10/17: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-dHIk59FUVo5jKrN-nfniB2kcFw8LoplklTtGt4OsQE/edit#gid=909092024
Only one person may claim an article.
By the due date of the final assignment, you will be expected to upgrade the article of your choosing through careful editing and useful content additions (with citations as needed). For that edit, you will research the topic, collecting as much information as you can, and then carefully curate which of that information is relevant to a general audience. You will then write carefully considered and cleanly edited additions to the public Wikipedia article.
Make you stub shine like the first two examples shared here. They won;t need to be that long. Some topics don't lend themselves to be very deep. But make your stub worthwhile for anyone interested about what the topic is about.