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Request for course instructor right: 1980na (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Nimish A.

Institution

Manhattanville College

Course title and description

The name of the course is Economics of Developing Countries. Most of the students will be 2nd to 4th year undergraduates--economics and business majors. One of their assignments is to contribute substantially to the "economy" or closely related sub section of a developing country whose article is currently underdeveloped. Substantial contributions include updating or adding a chart or table that displays the country's GDP per capita, inflation rates, exchange rates, etc. Other contributions could include (1) providing description of significant economic events (bouts of high inflation, currency crisis, sovereign default, rapid spurt of growth etc.) (2) describing the economy's integration with the world economy (3) describing the main economic development policies of the government and what academic studies of the effectiveness of the policies have concluded. The students will be asked to contribute only that information that they have gotten from academic sources.

Number of students

12

Start and end dates

Aug 25 2014-Dec 5th 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --1980na (talk) 00:55, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Support. Her detailed course plan (in her sandbox) is one of the best I have seen. It is well-paced and covers a relatively easy topic (for which there are many online descriptive and statistical sources.) However, she just started editing Wikipedia yesterday & will need significant ambassador-help, I think. Rjensen (talk) 05:10, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Just wanted to indicate that I am a he. --1980na (talk) 05:23, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

It would be great to have a campus ambassador, but I also feel that I would be able to handle any issues that would arise in absence of an ambassador. I have completed all possible tutorials related to Wikipedia and made several edits on wikipedia articles. What other stuff can I do to demonstrate my ability to handle the issues that would arise from the class assignment I am contemplating?--1980na (talk) 21:33, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I have approved the application for 1980na. I am your regional ambassador for the New York area, and would be glad to help however I can, including helping to set up the course page and perhaps helping you find a campus ambassador in Westchester.--Pharos (talk) 16:58, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Pharos. I will get in touch with you soon once I have written out my assignment completely.--1980na (talk) 20:13, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Help with course page

Howdy, I managed to confuse myself in stepping through the course wizard and my course page looks a bit funky. I'm not sure why there are orphaned curly brackets '}' and I'm confused about the name of the course "Online communities (2014 Q3)" versus the actual term in the template "term = 2014 Fall" -- which is correct. Are course names supposed to have a semester in them?

-Reagle (talk) 13:22, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the braces:  Done There was an error in the course builder template, it should appear fine now. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:44, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, but what about the course name? (Course name says "2014 Q3" but the term is "2014 Fall".) The reason I ask is if I teach the same course in the Spring, should the course name be term agnostic, or will I create a new course for each instantiation? -Reagle (talk) 11:30, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

User:Reagle: you should create a new course page for each time you run the course, so that the course page will have a set of students for that specific term; otherwise, students from a second term would be mixed in with those from the first term (or you would need to remove all the previous students from the class, removing the main record of which users where participating). The current course page extension uses the "term" you input when you start course page (from Special:Courses or an institution page like Education Program:Northeastern University) to form part of the page title. You can set the term field to anything you want, when you create a new course.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 04:49, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Any existing quiz for the content in the Wikipedia tutorial?

Does anyone know of a list of quiz questions that I can use to hold my students accountable for completing the Wikipedia:Training/For_students? I am planning to assign one such quiz for grade. --1980na (talk) 04:34, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I have started drafting such a quiz now at Wikipedia training for students post completion quiz Feel free to contribute to it or copy it. --1980na (talk) 22:50, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

@1980na: That quiz is pretty good. Be advised, if you just want to verify that your students have completed the tutorial, you can check their user contributions at Wikipedia:Training/For students/Training feedback. I assume you plan to implement the quiz in your classroom. You could ask Ragesoss what would need to be done to make this a training module on wiki. Chris Troutman (talk) 02:34, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you @Chris troutman: --1980na (talk) 05:50, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Cool! User:1980na, adding a quiz that actually behaves like a quiz is something on my radar for the trainings, although I'm not sure whether it will be more practical as something on-wiki or something that lives on the wikiedu.org site that we're building for additional features that can't be done as easily on-wiki. In any case, this is a great start for quiz content.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:28, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

• The ideal delivery platform for a quiz (in my opinion) is as a SCORM module. Pretty much every institution that has an elearning system that can import basic SCORM (Blackboard Learning System and Moodle being pretty popular) and a pre-packaged module would make it really easy for instructors to set the quiz as compulsory, counting for some tiny fraction of final grade and also integrated with their institutional systems (i.e. it helps instructors with their marking). Stuartyeates (talk) 22:54, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Anne Gunn (username eagunn)

• About me: http://www.linkedin.com/in/annegunn
• About my software startup and why I am attending a conference of STEM educators: http://learning-laboratory.com/

Institution

None -- I am giving a talk at the University of Wyoming on 7 August to a group of STEM educators on how they might incorporate Wikipedia into their classroom practice. The conference: http://edu.wyoming.gov/stories/stem-conference-roadmap/

Course title and description

See above

Number of students

Six educators were registered as of yesterday; it's a small conference but there are those who think it will be important.

Start and end dates

7 August, 8-10 am, Mountain time. But I know that my failure to prepare in advance does NOT constitute an emergency for you ambassadors. If you can't grant me access by tomorrow, I will figure out a way to do with out it. If you can, thank you!!

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Eagunn (talk) 16:04, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Granted, as many of us are at Wikimania and I don't see much potential for harm here. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:16, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

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

Drew M. Loewe, PhD

St. Edward's University

ENGW 1302: Rhetoric and Composition II

Second course of first-year general-education writing sequence. I will be using Wikipedia for a researched article assignment (and other activities leading up to that assignment). The assignment and activities are designed to help students read sources carefully, write precisely, and cite appropriately.

The public nature of this writing, plus the chance to contribute to knowledge outside the classroom are major reasons we will be contributing to Wikipedia.

20

Start: 08.25.14 End: 12.12.14

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --DMLoewe (talk) 22:21, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Request for Course Instructor Right

Hello. I am an Associate Professor of English Writing and Rhetoric at St. Edward's University in Austin, TX.

May I please be granted the course instructor right?

I plan to have a major assignment in a freshman writing course (20 students) where students develop an article that is in "stub" form at present. I also plan, as activities, to have students add citations to "citation needed" articles and edit for sentence clarity, verb tenses, and Wikipedia style guide consistency on pages flagged for such attention.

I do not have the assignments drafted yet, but I plan to borrow heavily from Piotrus Course Intro Boilerplate and from Student Wikipedia Contributions in Introductory Composition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DMLoewe (talk • contribs) 20:38, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to wikipedia DMLoewe, have you done the Wikipedia:Training/For_educators? Stuartyeates (talk) 20:56, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I have now, thanks. DMLoewe (talk) 22:25, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

@DMLoewe: Hi, Drew. I granted you the user right, since you're basing your assignment off of a successful one from Piotr. I also added St. Edward's University to the education extension, so you should be able to follow the instructions here to add your course page, starting from the bottom of this page. I hope that helps—I didn't want to create the page for you without knowing your course title. Please shoot me an email at jami@wikiedu.org so we can talk more about your planned assignment, since it sounds like it's still in development. Thank you; and we're looking forward to have your student editors participate! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:45, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Inactive Course Coordinators

en: user flags

The following users with Course Coordinator access appear to be inactive in the program and should have this permission removed if it will not be used anymore:

• @Semccraw: Semccraw (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}
• @Sleuthwood: Sleuthwood (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}
  • Pinging the usual list: @OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman:
• Please confirm if this permission is still required. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:23, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Why is this even an issue? Many other permissions that users could do more damage to Wikipedia (e.g. rollback, file mover) don't lose their tools when the users become inactive. Even inactive admins had to wait for 12 months of inactivity before they lose their sysop. Furthermore, it's summer (in Northern Hemisphere) and courses are at their lowest level in a year. And finally, some courses run bi-annually so we have to wait and see if they would return for fall session, not judging based some arbitrary-defined inactivity criteria. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:01, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I am open to talking about best practices in removing userrights from inactive users but I do not see this as a pressing issue right now. My first thought is that two years would be a good amount of time to wait, just because of low risk of harm and two years being an amount of time that if a person is away for that long they would need to be updated. One year I could tolerate - some classes only happen one term a year. To what extent is this an issue now? Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:07, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
    • 18-24 months seems reasonable for positions such as instructors. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:12, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
    • I'd suggest a year for coordinators, more in line with other advanced permissions; especially as it is easy to restore. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:12, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
  • In the case of User:Semccraw, they appear to have never logged an EP action, added their profile or become listed on the list. So they appear to be a no-show and have no need for this. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:12, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
  • In the case of User:Sleuthwood they also appear inactive in the logs for 17 months. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:12, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I've removed this advanced user right for these two users at this time, barring any more specific guidelines being created any admin should feel free to restore if the users show up here and ask for them back. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:39, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Roles in general

I suppose a related topic would be what type (or any?) on-wiki activity should be expected from these users related to the program all together? If users are looking for a coordinator/ambassador/etc is providing a list that contains inactive accounts of use? — xaosflux ^Talk 21:12, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm unsure about a time period, but it should certainly become an issue if there has been an educational issue where the user has not replied. Perhaps a good approach, before posting here, would be to contact users at their user talk, and list them here only if they do not reply within some length of time. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:25, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Final review of psychology handout

I just uploaded the designed file for the new psychology 4-page brochure to Commons: File:Editing Wikipedia articles on psychology.pdf. I welcome any final suggestions in the next few days before we print them! Please add comments on this talk page. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 08:50, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Editing course page?

Is it possible to edit the course page (e.g., create new sections and link to possible topics)? If I click edit, I just see the wizard comment. -Reagle (talk) 16:06, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Can you provide the link you are using? — xaosflux ^Talk 18:05, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Reagle: The wizard template works, essentially, by transcluding the standard header plus the three subpages you created during the setup process. So you could work within the wizard by simply replacing or adding sections in those wizard subpages. But since you don't really want or need the rails that the wizard provides, I've replaced it with the actual content of those subpages, so it should look a little more familiar now. Press edit on Education Program:Northeastern University/Online communities (2014 Q3) now to add or remove whatever you like.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:40, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Sage (Wiki Ed) -Reagle (talk) 12:19, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application: akhilpvzm

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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Akhilpvzm

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}

Akhilpvzm (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I love wikipedia and Editing it

2. In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.

   i will involve in editing content in wikipedia without any partiality

3. Please indicate a few articles to which you have made significant content contributions. (e.g. DYK, GA, FA, major revisions/expansions/copyedits).

   copyedits

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.

   no

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?

   yes

8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?

   i check their editing and i will correct them if it has any mistakes

9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?

   i will remove the content

10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.

    use of works protected by copyright law without permission

11. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

    i worked as internshala student partner,viber student ambassador so i have experience in working

AKHIL VARMA (talk) 18:05, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

(Non-ambassador comment)User's only two edits were to this board. Cheers and Thanks, L235-Talk Ping when replying 18:29, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

From the directions: "f you have come here to apply for either the Online Ambassador or Campus Ambassador positions, please be aware that you need to have an edit history on the site so that you can be adequately evaluated by the team. If you are making your first edit ever on this site, you will also be automatically rejected unless you can provide other accounts that are yours. Thank you for your understanding, and happy editing!". Do you have an alt account? — xaosflux ^Talk 20:47, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

 Not done. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:00, 16 August 2014 (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.

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

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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Name

Adeline Koh

Institution

Richard Stockton College of New Jersey

Course title and description

GIS 3614. Seminar in Feminist Theory This course serves as the capstone course for all students pursuing a minor in Women and Gender Studies. It is also open to other interested students. In this course, students will read and discuss important texts within feminist theory. This course covers how gender factors into how human beings create, interpret and produce knowledge claims about the world. We will learn about the history of feminist thought in its various stages, and evaluate the strengths, insights and weaknesses of different theoretical standpoints. Wikipedia editing replaces the usual midterm and final research papers for class. Students have to learn how to become good Wikipedia citizens, make good faith edits, submit drafts of their edits to their article talk pages, peer review each others edits and write responses.

Number of students

25

Start and end dates

Sept 4 2014-Dec 10 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Thorgodofwar (talk) 17:21, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

•  Done. The course plan doesn't reach hands-on Wikipedia work until late in the term, and it doesn't leave much time for feedback and revision, but it looks like the assignment only asks for 3-4 paragraphs of article expansion per student, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Thorgodofwar, if you have some flexibility to shuffle your syllabus a bit, I'd recommend having the students start posting their initial drafts earlier in the term, and leave a bit more time at the end for responding to feedback from classmates and the Wikipedia community, and making improvements based on that.--ragesoss (talk) 18:17, 14 August 2014 (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: Lixxx235

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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Lixxx235

Lixxx235 (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I really like to branch out, to help Wikipedia in the most ways possible(I'm currently trying out GAN reviewing, GAN nominating, moving images to Commons, reviewing image licenses, volunteering at DRN, copyediting, as well as my usual weird hodgepodge of reviewing AfCs, AWB, Huggle, expanding articles occasionally, and helping at #wikipedia-en-help), and I feel being a Online Ambassador would be a perfect fit for me(aside from the relative lack of contribs to articles.) I am willing to make the time commitment.

2. In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.

   (sorry to copy from before, but this works well here, in my opinion). I'm currently trying out GAN reviewing, GAN nominating, moving images to Commons, reviewing image licenses, volunteering at DRN, copyediting, as well as my usual weird hodgepodge of reviewing AfCs, AWB, Huggle, expanding articles occasionally, and helping at #wikipedia-en-help

3. Please indicate a few articles to which you have made significant content contributions. (e.g. DYK, GA, FA, major revisions/expansions/copyedits).

   Well, this will be the hardest question. I'm not that engaged in content creation, and when I do, they're buried in a mound of other contributions. I do a lot to expand AfCs, and copyedit occasionally. I am also reviewing a GAN, if that helps(I noticed this being one of the application criterion). If you really need wikilinks, feel free to ping me and I'll try to find them or I'll just make a few contribs now.

4. How have you been involved with welcoming and helping new users on Wikipedia?

   Whenever I see a newcomer making useful contributions(usually when I'm patrolling PC1 backlog) with the "Welcome" button available, I use it. Also, I help out on #wikipedia-en-help a lot.

5. What do you see as the most important ways we could welcome newcomers or help new users become active contributors?

   Well, it depends what the question is asking about. Which "we" are you talking about? Education program, or Wikipedia in general? I'll answer in two segments

   • If you're asking about the Education Program, I personally think we should let the professors, not the online ambassadors, welcome the students. They can do so much more- talk to the students directly, assign learning assignments, etc, while here, we can only show them a big welcome template. I think the opposite is true when it comes to helping the students become active contributors- we can provide the working environment, support, links to policy, and we can press that "thank" button. Positive feedback is a great way to keep contributors.
   • If you're talking about how Wikipedia in general can welcome/help new users, I think that the most important way is to provide that positive feedback. Newcomer fixed a typo? Thank them! Make a good faith editing test? Still thank them, though with an explanation on their talk page. Ask them to come on IRC where they'll get the help and encouragement they need.

6. Have you had major conflicts with other editors? Blocks or bans? Involvement in arbitration? Feel free to offer context, if necessary.

   I have never had any conflicts escalating to any noticeboard, even 3rd opinion. (Woot!)

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?

   I edit Wikipedia in large quantity, and do so very often. I am certain I can meet the time requirement.

8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?

   I will educate them about copyright law and how it pertains to Wikipedia(you can take from this but must attribute, you can do this, you can't do that). I will also check a random sample of each student'a edits.

9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?

   I would resolve first by following Wikipedia policy. For example, I would speedy a page they created, if it's unambiguous and widespread across the page. I'll also bring this to people more experienced than I. Then, I would email/leave a talk page message/whatever means of communication available, and I would also contact their professor, to try to get the issue fixed.

10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.

    Copyright infringment, is, on a basic level, intentionally or unintentionally, using someone's copyrighted work in ways or for purposes not allowed by the copyright holder or fair use law.

11. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

    Nope. (Yay! done!)

Cheers and Thanks, L235-Talk Ping when replying 14:24, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Can someone close this now? It's been a while since I made this application and I have two endorsements and no opposes. Cheers and Thanks, L235-Talk Ping when replying 00:54, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

• Support brief but intense edit history (did you have a previous user acoount?). Seems to know their way around. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:45, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

  @Stuartyeates:I did have a previous account doing content creation only, but that was a long time ago and was only around for about a month. After that I went and looked through pretty much all the policies and came back. Cheers and Thanks, L235-Talk Ping when replying 22:54, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Not much article writing experience, but I don't see anything that makes me think Lxxx235 would be unhelpful as an OA.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:10, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

 Done. Added (multiple EP endorsements, no dissenters). — xaosflux ^Talk 01:29, 16 August 2014 (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.

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

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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Name

Kate Grillo

Institution

University of Wisconsin - La Crosse

Course title and description

ARC 312, African Archaeology. This is a course for advanced undergraduates on the archaeology of Africa from millions of years ago to the present. African archaeology is a growing and vibrant field, and my students will work to improve Wikipedia entries that present African archaeological sites, information on Africanist archaeologists, and the significance of the African past. My students will be required to edit/expand existing entries and to create new entries when appropriate. Although I am not an experienced Wikipedia editor, I have recruited User:Comtebenoit, another archaeology professor, as our Online Ambassador. Please note, I posted this request for user rights last week, and it was auto-archived due to lack of responses. I have updated my course page with more detailed assignments, and I am working to learn as much about Wikipedia as possible prior to the start of the class. Admins, please let me know if there's anything else I can do to prepare! Thanks so much.

Number of students

20

Start and end dates

September 2nd - December 29th 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Ninafundisha (talk) 23:33, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

• @Jami (Wiki Ed), Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: I can confirm that I've been in contact with Ninafundisha about her course and using wikipedia. I'm willing and able to support her class. Comtebenoit (talk) 06:19, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
  •  Done. Sorry about the delay. Ninafundisha: your general plan looks good to me. As you decide in more detail how you'll run your assignments, I'd just emphasize the importance of spreading out Wikipedia milestones throughout the term, and to leave plenty of time for feedback and revision after the students' add their major drafts. Even if the details don't fit your class, the example syllabus is a good model to follow for pacing the work over the term.--ragesoss (talk) 18:25, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
    • Thanks, and thanks for the advice! Ninafundisha (talk) 21:44, 14 August 2014 (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.

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

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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Name

Avery Dame

Institution

University of Maryland, College Park

Course title and description

WMST 250: Women, Art, and Culture. WMST 250 is an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of women’s studies with special focus on the arts and humanities. The course aims to develop students' skills in analysing and critiquing cultural texts, particularly their representations of women and their assumptions about gender, race, class, sexuality, and other categories of identity. It also introduces students to the cultural production of a range of women artists from different backgrounds, working in many different mediums and genres. It explores some of the differences among women, as well as connections and affiliations among them as creative workers in the arts.

Students in WMST250 are all undergraduates, often early in their college careers (freshmen and sophomores). This project is meant to get students thinking about how knowledge production happens online--who determines what you read, what qualifies as "reliable" or "respected" information--as well as develop their media literacy.

Number of students

I have two sections, totalling 50 students.

Start and end dates

Sept 2-Dec 11

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Apdame (talk) 16:08, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

•  Done. Good luck!--ragesoss (talk) 18:28, 14 August 2014 (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.

Wiki Education Foundation July monthly report published

The July edition of the Wiki Education Foundation monthly report is now available on Commons, on-wiki, and on our blog. As always, I welcome any questions or feedback. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:49, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Concerning issues arising from Online Ambassador Akifumii/Xermano

There is a discussion on WP:ANI#Harassment following SPI regarding some potential issues related to online ambassador Akifumii/Xermano's sockpuppetry and deception as to who they claim to be. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Ed hiring two Wikipedia Content Experts

Wiki Education Foundation is hiring two experienced Wikipedia editors for part-time (20 hours/week) positions: Wikipedia Content Expert, Sciences and Wikipedia Content Expert, Humanities. The focus of these positions is to help student editors do better work, through everything from advice and cleanup on individual articles, to helping instructors find appropriate topics for the students to work on, to tracking the overall quality of work from student editors and finding ways to improve it. We're looking for clueful, friendly editors who like to focus on article content, but also have a strong working knowledge of policies and guidelines, and who have experience with DYK, GAN, and other quality processes.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:11, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: Jesibender

Jesibender (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador because Wikipedia projects provide contextual basis for projects and illustrates the interconnected nature of information. The public-facing nature of the scholarship being created also introduces students to a community of scholars and helps them see their work as augmenting scholarly knowledge.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   Hamilton, NY at Colgate University's Case Library

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   I hold a B.A. from Cornell University and a M.L.I.S. from Pratt Institute. For the past year and a half, I have been employed as an Instructional Design and Web Librarian at Colgate University.

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   Professionally, I have observed two classes utilize Wikipedia for project involving Muhammad and Women in Islam. I also have been involved in promoting Wikipedia as a pedagogical technology. Personally, I use Wikipedia every day.

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Jesibender (talk) 19:03, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Hello Jesibender, I see you've had an account with Wikipedia for years but haven't really used it. Do you currently participate with any other accounts? — xaosflux ^Talk 01:45, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Xaosflux, You are right - I used this account briefly a few years ago. Most of my teaching has been co-teaching with my colleagues, Debbie Krahmer and Sarah Kunze, both ambassadors at Colgate University. — Jesibender (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 14:54, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: Swatantrasingh

Swatantrasingh (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I would like to all students and professors of our institution know everything about wikipedia.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   I am from Bhopal, and i want to work with Radharaman Institute Of Technology & Science.

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   Presently I am in 3rd Year ,pursuing Bachelor Of Engineering in Computer Science From Radharaman Institute Of Technology & Science,Bhopal.

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   one day,i saw my college was not add on wikipedia,than i joined wikimedia and study about wikimedia.

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Swatantrasingh (talk) 13:51, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

You have a very sparse contributions history on the English Wikipedia, have you contributed to any of the other language projects? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:00, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Ans : - No,sir — Preceding unsigned comment added by Swatantrasingh (talk • contribs) 04:00, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: Swatantrasingh

Swatantrasingh (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I would like to all students and professors of our institution know everything about wikipedia.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   I am from Bhopal, and i want to work with Radharaman Institute Of Technology & Science

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   Presently I am in 3rd Year ,pursuing Bachelor Of Engineering in Computer Science From Radharaman Institute Of Technology & Science,Bhopal

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   one day,i saw my college was not add on wikipedia,than i joined wikimedia and study about wikimedia.)

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Swatantra Singh 12:22, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

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

Name

<Margo Hobbs>

Institution

<Muhlenberg College>

Course title and description

<ARH225 Women and Art. This is an introductory art history course for undergraduates. We will investigate the role of women artists in the major movements in Western art from the Middle Ages to Postmodernism. We will consider the ways women artists are written into—and out of—history: many artists who are little-known today had considerable renown in their own time! This class will contribute to an ongoing effort to improve the coverage of women artists in Wikipedia by asking you to critique, edit, and expand relevant entries. Wikipedia assignments are woven into the course structure, with weekly workshops that introduce students to Wikipedia, writing for an encyclopedia, evaluating secondary sources, etc. The students will each edit an article on a woman artist.>

Number of students

<15>

Start and end dates

<August 25 to December 3>

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --MMHobbs (talk) 20:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)MMHobbs

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

Name

Joan M. Herbers.

Institution

The Ohio State University.

Course title and description

EEOB3310: Evolution is a course required for majors that assumes one full year of introductory biology.

Number of students

<Maximum enrollment is 250

Start and end dates

Autumn Semester, 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Antlady (talk) 16:13, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

(non-coordinator or an administrator comment)I've cleaned up the above so the answers are not in the comments anymore. Cheers and Thanks, L235-Talk Ping when replying 16:30, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Trouble adding institution

The following message was left on my talk page: Hello! I am a professor at Ohio State, which does not yet have a presence on the Special: Institutions page. I wish to use Wikipedia this autumn for an evolution class and am having trouble getting started. I have my own sandbox (Antlady), and have taken the training, and used the Course Wizard. The training indicates that after using Course Wizard there is a way to add my institution. HOWEVER, when I got to the end, it dumped me into the Education noticeboard, which does not seem to have a way out. I do not know how to get my institution listed, which is the first step. Can you help, please?!

Joan Herbers Ohio State University aka Antlady Antlady (talk) 14:27, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Could someone with familiarity with adding institutions help Joan? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:07, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I got a similar message. I've added the institution, but Prof. Herbers will still have to get the instructor flag to create the course. Cheers, Thanks, L235-Talk Ping when replying 15:25, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

I talked with this instructor by phone. She has a colleague who participated in the Wikipedia education program. I was impressed that she already was sensitive to the stress that classes can put on the Wikipedia community, and liked that she already had a plan for the students to submit "final" work to Wikipedia and follow up on community comments for five weeks after that. I wish all professors would account for that much time or longer in the follow up.

I know of no one in Ohio who might be available to present at this class in person, and I will not be their class ambassador, but I did offer to give the professor and teaching assistants a tour of Wikipedia in a virtual conference space next week. I expect to meet them then.

I gave this person course instructor userrights. I apologize for not getting a second opinion on this case, but as it happened this time, a lot of users have been informed of this class and there has not so far been a comment on it. I expect this was because it was a difficult decision due to lack of information. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:06, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Lane! @Antlady: I work at the Wiki Education Foundation, and I would also like to speak to you on the phone—I think it would be a good idea to talk about strategies for avoiding issues that may arise with your students. I would like to talk about how you'll ensure that so many groups will come up with notable topics and articles to edit, how you plan to review and evaluate their work, and if you can assign your teaching assistants our Ambassador training and then maybe even a Google Hangout with me. I don't want to suggest you definitely will have a lot of problems, but larger classes have traditionally been the ones that struggle, since any issue that comes up with the assignment affects so many more articles. Can you please email me at jami@wikiedu.org so we can set up a time? Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:35, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Amanda Ann Klein

Institution

East Carolina University

Course title and description

FILM3900: American and International Film History Part I: History of Film from 1895 to World War II Students are undergraduates who have taken FILM2900: Introduction to Film Studies

This course is a broad survey of the major films, genres, regulatory bodies and economic structures that defined cinema, both American and international, from its inception in the mid- 1890s through the onset of World War II. The course will address the social, industrial, and aesthetic history of these films, studying how they were made, sold, and exhibited in theaters. Students will begin the course by focusing on the technological and social changes that led to the development of the cinema and how later developments, such as the coming of sound and the development of various international studio systems, impacted the medium. While the major concern of this course is to understand these films in terms of their historical context, studies will also examine specific formal, narrative and rhetorical choices made by the individual films and filmmakers.

I am using Wikipedia in this course for 2 reasons: 1. teach students how to do proper historical research 2. teach lesson in understanding how knowledge is aggregated, vetted and shared online.

Number of students

Approximately 25

Start and end dates

August-December 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --ProfAAKlein (talk) 17:52, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Will the students be required do editing on Wikipedia for credit? Rjensen (talk) 20:36, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@ProfAAKlein: I went ahead and granted you the user right. Your assignment looks well thought-out on your draft course page, and I know you were connected to the assignment through Adeline, who has learned a lot about teaching with Wikipedia. Look for an email from me shortly to set up some time to talk about any concerns you have and so I can make sure you and your students have the most updated and best materials. Looking forward to seeing the work they do! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:06, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@ProfAAKlein: I went ahead and moved your draft to this course page. It may not show up in the list of courses until tomorrow, as it sometimes takes several hours, but you can at least access it through that direct link! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:13, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@The ed17: Care to help out in person this next year, as you are both in the same neighborhood. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:30, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Request for Course Instructor Right

Name

Vilna Bashi Treitler

Institution

CUNY - Baruch College

Course title and description

The Evolution and Expressions of Racism

The course title described the course, which teaches students from where the idea of race comes, and how it has been used around the globe and throughout history to create inequality and oppression in the name of fallacious racial differences. It's a lower level course, meant for freshmen/sophomores, but often there are seniors in the course who are fulfilling course distributions requirements. I'm a sociologist, considering making a student assignment this fall. I teach at the CUNY Graduate center, which is listed on the "Institutions" page, and also at CUNY's Baruch College, which is not listed on the institutions page. I can't add it because I don't have instructor access. Would you please allow me to have instructor rights? Then I can add my institution, and also create a class page. For this fall's semester assignment, I've already made a list of items on race/racism that can be new submissions, those that need citations, and those that need other kinds of improvements. Students will work in groups. All of the student writings will be entries in sociology, all of them will be related to race and racism.)

...(FYI, I met Piotr at the ISA meetings in Yokohama, Japan, July 2014. This is how I got interested in participating as a classroom instructor.)

...(I'd also like to have information on how to get the aid of an Ambassador who'd come to our NYC classroom. Thanks!)

Number of students

35

Start and end dates

September 3 through December 12, 2014

@Vtreitler: I granted you the user right and also started your Course Page for you. Please follow the guidelines to add your course description (what you have above is a good example of what to add, though you'll want to direct it to your students. Please also add your plans for the Wikipedia assignment and editing — what do you expect from them? Will they create new articles in their groups or edit existing articles? etc.), your timeline and due dates, and your grading plans. Once you have completed that, please send me an email at jami@wikiedu.org, and I will take a look and see if anything looks like you might run into issues. It's great to hear you spoke to Piotr, though! He is a great resource for planning a Wikipedia assignment in sociology! We can also try to find someone to come into your classroom, but you should also plan to assign the online student training, and hopefully we can at least find someone who can support your students online. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:30, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Editing course page created with course wizard

I've created a course page using the course page wizard. Mike Christie has agreed to be our online ambassador, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to add him to the "Online Volunteers" section of the summary at the bottom of the page. When I click edit, the only thing that's there is the one-line course page wizard text, so I can't just edit the page like a regular Wikipedia page. There's no Edit link next to the Summary box either. I'd appreciate any help with this! Profmwilliams (talk) 19:00, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@Profmwilliams: I added it for you! You can add it via the infobox at the bottom of the page, but I think only the Online volunteer or someone with the user rights that I have can actually add that piece. So sorry for taking your time while you tried to figure it out!! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:15, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@Jami (Wiki Ed): Thank you! Profmwilliams (talk) 19:24, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Cassondra Vernier

Institution

Washington University in St. Louis

Course title and description

Behavioral Ecology-- This is a course for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. In this course, we will study the way organisms behave and why they have evolved to do so. We will particularly focus on cooperative and conflict-driven behaviors, such as the evolution of aggression, mating behaviors, and altruistic behaviors. A major component of the course is for the students to edit current or create new wikipedia pages of under-represented (on wikipedia) animal species with new developments on their behaviors, making citations from peer reviewed journals. Our focus this year will be on social wasps, and every student will attempt to bring their assigned page up to a "good article".

Number of students

About 50 students.

Start and end dates

August 25, 2014-December 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Verniercass (talk) 19:48, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@Verniercass: Thanks so much for posting your draft of Dr. Strassmann's Wikipedia assignment. I created a Course Page for you, so please follow that link to find the page for this term. Looking forward to seeing the amazing work her student editors do again! Please let me know (on my talk page or by email at jami@wikiedu.org) what other support you guys are looking for this time around! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:56, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: Rberchie

Rberchie (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   To learn more and contribute to Wikiepdia

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   GHANA Any University in Greater Accra Region

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   BACHELOR OF SCIENCE

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   YOUR ANSWER Wiki Indaba, Wikimedia outreaches at Bar Camps in Ghana and editing.

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Rberchie (talk) 11:53, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

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

Name

Sally Wasmuth

Institution

Indiana University, Indianapolis

Course title and description

This course, Advanced Mental Health for the Occupational Therapist, is a graduate level course for 2nd year Masters occupational therapy students. Publishing a Wikipedia article is one of two assignments for this course along with a hands on intervention with clients. Students will edit stubs and/or create their own articles on underdeveloped concepts and issues in occupational therapy mental health practice.

Number of students

10

Start and end dates

September 2, 2014 - Novemeber 25, 2014

Swotmh (talk) 16:52, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Swotmh (talk) 01:16, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

@Swotmh: Hi, Sally. Thanks for submitting a draft of your assignment. I went ahead and granted you the user right so you can edit your course page, and I would like to talk to you about your plans for your assignment (how will students select articles to edit? will you provide a list of options for them? will you review information about appropriate sourcing in class?) to make sure they are set up for a positive experience and to make good contributions to Wikipedia. Can you please email me at jami@wikiedu.org? I am happy to set up some time to speak with you and review your assignment with you!

Meanwhile, I did move your draft course page into the main course page space. You can find it here. We also have a new handout for psychology students this term that I would like to send you once it's available (PDF versions should be available by tomorrow; printed versions will be available next week), so please do email me so I can get the best contact info! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:16, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

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

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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Name

Hamad Sindhi

Institution

SUNY - Fashion Institute of Technology

Course title and description

Introduction to Sociology - survey course on the basic theories, methods and issues in Sociology. Covers topics as diverse as deviance, race, gender, class, scientific method, culture, socialization, social movements, technology, media, education, religion, family, and political and economic systems. For first-year undergraduates. We will be using Wikipedia to build an article on 'Sociology of Fashion' (currently does not exist on Wikipedia), with at least 6-8 sub-sections (sub-topics in the area of sociology of fashion). Teams of students will be doing literature reviews on specific sub-sections and adding content as they find more literature.

Number of students

25

Start and end dates

September 25 2014 - December 8 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Hamsindh (talk) 20:15, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

@Hamsindh: Thank you for creating your draft page. I granted you the user right and moved your draft to a Course Page for you. So glad to see you followed up with the assignment after meeting you ASA's annual meeting last week. I will send you a follow-up email to make sure you are ready to start the assignment when your course starts. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:44, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I accidentally enrolled and I was told to come here to leave. TranquilHope (talk) 10:20, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

TranquilHope you have been unenrolled. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:07, 29 August 2014 (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.

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

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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Name

James Schmidt

Institution

Boston University

Course title and description

The European Enlightenment: undergraduate course on the transformation of European culture and society between the last decades of the seventeenth century and the end of the eighteenth century. Texts assigned include political tracts, philosophical essays, theological treatises, as well as a few examples from the “literary underground” of the eighteenth century. They will draw rather heavily on a few major figures — Voltaire, Diderot, Condorcet, Lessing, and the Scottish moralists — but will also pay attention to important eighteenth-century figures who are sometimes overlooked in introductory surveys (e.g., Moses Mendelssohn, Richard Price, and Joseph Priestley).

The current enrollment of course is 17: four first year students, four second year, four third year, and five fourth year. The Wikipedia fits into the course in three ways:

1) During the first week of the course, students will be asked to read the current Wikipedia entry on "The Age of Enlightenment" and submit a brief paper contrasting the presentation of the period in the Wikipedia with Ernst Cassirer's article for the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (which dates from the 1930s) and my own article for the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy and discussing points that they would like to see further clarified during the course.

2) Over the next few weeks of the course, as students work their way through the course readings, students will indicate the ways in which the sources they have read might (a) improve the existing main Wikipedia article on the Enlightenment and/or (b) might serve as useful linked articles to the main entry

3) Upon completion of the student tutorial and after registering for Wikipedia accounts, students will begin drafting proposed edits and new pages in their sandbox, which after I have given feedback, they will move onto the Wikipedia.

Number of students

Enrollment is currently 17. Typically there is some attrition over the first few weeks

Start and end dates

Starts Sept 2; Ends Dec. 10

JamesSchmidt (talk) 19:45, 25 August 2014 (UTC) @OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --JamesSchmidt (talk) 19:45, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

@JamesSchmidt: Hi, James! Thank you for drafting your course page. I granted you the user right and moved your information to this Course Page. Will your student editors be sticking to the primary article you mentioned, or will some edit other articles? Please look for an email from me about where you can get support during the assignment and beforehand! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:58, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

-- @Jami: My plan was to begin the course by discussing the "Age of Enlightenment" page and, as the semester progresses, have the students also look at some of the linked pages as well as consider additional pages that might be added. I'm setting up a separate wiki on the course's Blackboard site where students can share ideas before moving on to work with the Wikipedia pages themselves. JamesSchmidt (talk) 18:28, 26 August 2014 (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.

Request for course instructor right: Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ (course page draft)

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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Name

Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥

Institution

Students 4 Best Evidence

Course title and description

Students 4 Best Evidence, September 2014 editing campaign

Students 4 Best Evidence, in collaboration with Wikiproject Medicine and Cochrane Collaboration's UK Centre, is launching a campaign to encourage the improvement of Wikipedia medical articles.

The aim of the week is to get students adding and editing the latest health evidence and evidence–based concepts on Wikipedia.

Number of students

Potentially 20-30

Start and end dates

September 4th beginning date for registration and practice editing, September 16 for a live edit-a-thon and google hangout, followed by a week to complete identified editing tasks.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 22:14, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support User FloNight is an experienced Wikipedian and I have talked with her about her project. Would someone second this? Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:25, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
• I went ahead and granted this request, so you now have the user right. Good luck with the new medical project! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:41, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks :-) Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 22:48, 27 August 2014 (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.

Campus Volunteer User Right User:Matthewvetter

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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I'm requesting the Campus Volunteer User Right. I was trained by Pongr and Sleuthwood back in 2011 at one of the last f2f ambassador trainings. I've had experience working in the program as an instructor, but I'm planning on working with at least one course this semester in the capacity of campus ambassador. Any other information needed? Just let me know. Matthewvetter (talk) 19:14, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

It seems like Education Program:Ohio University/Writing and Rhetoric II, Writing in Wikipedia (2014 S2) went well when you were an instructor with that. The process for getting instructor rights is similar to that for getting campus ambassador rights, so I assigned those rights to you. Thanks for your continued interest. That is a lot of feedback on the talk page for that last class you hosted. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:24, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks so much @Bluerasberry: Had a great time with Education Program:Ohio University/Writing and Rhetoric II, Writing in Wikipedia (2014 S2) and am looking forward to helping another instructor out this semester. Matthewvetter (talk) 19:35, 28 August 2014 (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.

Campus Ambassador application: Masssly

Masssly (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I would like to co-ordinate activities of the growing numbers of Wikipedia in Ghana, Regent University in particular.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   Accra- Ghana. Regent University College of Science and Technology

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   Bsc. Computer Science from University of Ghana. I am an MSc. Staistics candidate at Regent University College of Science and Technology.

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   I am active on several Wikimedia projects. My main interests are the use of Wikipedia in education in Africa. My Msc dissertation is set about to assess the perceptions of professors and students in higher education on the use of Wikipedia as a reference medium as well as a research or learning tool.

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I am enthusiastic about Wikimedia projects and that led me to volunteer actively at the events of Wikimania 2014 in London.

I am active also in the activities of Wikimedia Ghana and I am presently co-ordinating with wikiproject medicine to translate Ebolo and other health related articles into Dagbani, a local Ghanaian language.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --—Sadat (Masssly)❤Talk☮C☺Email☯ 18:13, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Request for course instructor right: Virginia.clinton (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Virginia Clinton, PhD

Institution

University of North Dakota

Course title and description

This course is Educational Psychology. Students are advanced undergraduates who will write for Wikipedia as part of a course project.

Number of students

35

Start and end dates

August 25 through December 19

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Virginia.clinton (talk) 01:46, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

 Done. Virginia.clinton, I've set up your course page at Education Program:University of North Dakota/Educational Psychology (Fall 2014). You should now be able to add yourself as the instructor, in the Summary section at the bottom of the page. Jami from Wiki Ed may follow up with you. --ragesoss (talk) 02:08, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

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

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.

---

Name

Robert E. Kraut

Institution

Carnegie Mellon University

Course title and description

Communication in Groups & Organizations. Undergraduate

Most of management is communication. You communicate to get information that will be the basis of decisions, coordinate activity, to provide a vision for the people who work for and with you, and to sell yourself and your work. The goal of this course is to identify communication challenges within work groups and organizations and ways to overcome them. To do this requires that we know how communication normally works, what parts are difficult, and how to fix it when it goes wrong.

The focus of this course is on providing you with a broad understanding of the way communication operates within dyads, work groups, and organizations. The intent is to give you theoretical and empirical underpinnings for the communication you will undoubtedly participate in when you move to a work environment, and strategies for improving communication within your groups. Because technology is changing communication patterns and outcomes both in organizations and more broadly in society, the course examines these technological changes as well. Readings come primarily from the empirical research literature supplemented with case studies and exercises.

Number of students

30

Start and end dates

Aug 25, 2014 - Dec 14, 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Robertekraut (talk) 22:05, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

@Robertekraut: Great; thank you for creating your draft course page after our talk this morning! I just granted you the user right and moved your draft to your new course page. Please let me know if you have any questions about the course page, and I will still send you and Rosta some descriptions about using the activity feed! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:40, 27 August 2014 (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.

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

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.

---

Name

Elspeth Brown

Institution

University of Toronto, Mississauga

Course title and description

Queer Theory. This course is designed as an introduction to some of the key concepts in both queer theory and trans studies. It is a 4th year undergraduate seminar with 18 students. Writing and editing for Wikipedia is the main project for the course. I have done some editing on Wikipedia, but hope that I can also work with a campus ambassador (it looks like there is one at my campus).

Number of students

18

Start and end dates

First class: Tues Sept 9, 2014; last class Ties Nov. 25, 2014.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Brownels (talk) 17:45, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

@Brownels: Elspeth, I granted you the user right and started a course page for you. Please use this page to have your students enroll (the top left button) once they are signed in with user accounts. I also pinged User:Dendenn, who is on your campus, to see if she is available this term. Can you please send me an email at jami@wikiedu.org so I have your contact information and can send you some other helpful resources for you and your students? Thank you! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:59, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Elspeth! I'm one of the two campus ambassadors at UTM, along with User:Unburritoble. I'd be happy to provide assistance with your assignment! Deneille Rochelle (talk) 19:47, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

@Brownels: You might check out the Wikipedia:Wikiproject LGBT studies for templates and possible articles to edit. Really cool course design! Good luck. Matthewvetter (talk) 19:44, 28 August 2014 (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.

Campus Ambassador application: Saravanan

210.212.246.46 (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   To gain knowledge, and to completely to get in the features of the wikipedia and spread it as much as i can.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   I am an Indian and i am from Kongu Engineering College

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   Third year bachelor degree in the died of Mechatronics Engineering

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)

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --210.212.246.46 (talk) 12:11, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

You need to Sign Up to Wikipedia first. — Revi_complaint? 12:14, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: Shubham Singh

116.203.44.139 (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I just want to create awareness of wikipedia among my university,as it is a very strong tool,so that they could take a healthy use of it.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   I am from India.My college is University of petroleum and energy studies.

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   I am a student of Bachelor of technology(Computer Science Engineering).

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 a great team leader.And I have a good Leadership quality in me.I am a very active person on campus,i have organized a lot number of workshops on campus.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --116.203.44.139 (talk) 20:33, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

(Non-administrator comment) Not done- IP addresses may not be assigned user rights. If you want to become a Campus Ambassador, register an account first. Cheers, Thanks, L235-Talk Ping when replying 20:49, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

ViroProf

Institution

Hillsdale College

Course title and description

Biology 597, Introduction to Virology, advanced undergraduate biology major, improving students communication skills is a goal for this course and an important core competency of an undergraduate biology major, communicating and collaborating in the context of Wikipedia has been chosen to fulfill this course goal.

Number of students

7

Start and end dates

9/1/14-12/5/14

@ViroProf: Hi! I went ahead and created your course page (here: Education Program:Hillsdale College/Introduction to Virology (Fall 2014)) from your draft. Now you can distribute that page to your students and have them enroll from the button on the top left (once they're logged in).

I do have a few questions about your Wikipedia assignment and would like to connect with you to make sure you have all of your questions and concerns answered. I'm wondering if they'll be creating new articles or if you'll provide them a list of existing articles that you believe need expanding, and we can talk about all aspects of your assignment. Please send me an email at jami@wikiedu.org so I can get your name and contact information and make sure you and your students are prepared for the assignment to be a success! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:41, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --ViroProf (talk) 20:34, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Amanda Ann Klein

Institution

East Carolina University

Course title and description

American and International Film History Part I: History of Film from 1895 to World War II This course is a broad survey of the major films, genres, regulatory bodies and economic structures that defined cinema, both American and international, from its inception in the mid- 1890s through the onset of World War II. The course will address the social, industrial, and aesthetic history of these films, studying how they were made, sold, and exhibited in theaters. Students will begin the course by focusing on the technological and social changes that led to the development of the cinema and how later developments, such as the coming of sound and the development of various international studio systems, impacted the medium. While the major concern of this course is to understand these films in terms of their historical context, studies will also examine specific formal, narrative and rhetorical choices made by the individual films and filmmakers.

Number of students

23

Start and end dates

Aug through Dec 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --ProfAAKlein (talk) 15:08, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

@AAKlein: You already have this user right and a course page here: Education Program:East Carolina University/History of Film from 1895 to World War II (Fall 2014). Also, the code wiki mark-up that you added after each answer above actually makes your text invisible—just a tip! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:15, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: Nikilada

Nikilada (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

I will be organizing an edit-a-thon in November and I thought it would be a good credential to have.

1. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

I am based in Nashville and I would be working with Vanderbilt University as a campus ambassador.

1. What is your academic and/or professional background?

I am currently a PhD candidate at Vanderbilt University in History.

1. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

I am very new to Wikipedia; I have just started learning the editing process and have done some translating, minor edits and categorizing.

1. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

I am the recipient of a fellowship through the Vanderbilt University Special Collections to help me learn how to edit in Wikipedia and host an edit-a-thon to promote Wikipedia and education.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Nikilada (talk) 16:39, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Hello! Our edit-a-thon event is Saturday. I was just wondering about the status of my campus ambassador application. Will its approval grant me any special permissions that might be useful for our Wikipedia event? Thank you for your help! (Nikilada (talk) 15:02, 29 October 2014 (UTC))

If students will not be registering on WP, is there any reason to have a course page?

After reading WP: Student assignments and its talk page, I decided that it would be in the best interests of my students in an introductory professional writing course not to require them to become part of the community. Instead, they will be studying WP guidelines and policies and analyzing the collaboration behind a Good or Featured article. I'll have them publish their analyses in another venue. Thus, although my students will be studying WP, its culture and practices, they will not (at least not as a course assignment) be editing it. It seems that the main purpose of the course pages is to allow experienced editors to monitor the students' WP contributions and ask instructors to intervene when students create problems, but since mine won't be making any contributions, is there any reason I should request a course page? Since I won't ask them to register, I wouldn't even be able to have them enroll on the page, so I'm thinking it's pointless. But maybe someone can give me a reason why I should ask for a course page anyway? Thanks in advance for advice or insights. AngelaVietto (talk) 19:48, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Not really, if they will not be enrolling or having pages assigned, there will be little use at this time. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:00, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for Course Instructor Right: MMHobbs (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Margo Hobbs

Institution

Muhlenberg College

Course title and description

Art History: Women and Art. This course will investigate the role of women artists in the major movements in Western art from the Middle Ages to Postmodernism. We will examine whether and how art and gender intersect in their careers. Well consider the ways women artists are written into–and out of–history: many artists who are little-known today had considerable renown in their own time! This class will contribute to an ongoing effort to improve the coverage of women artists in Wikipedia by asking you to critique, edit, and expand relevant entries.

Number of students

15

Course start and end dates

August 25 to December 5, 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman:

MMHobbs (talk) 19:30, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

@MMHobbs: I have granted you the user right and went ahead and created your course page for you from your draft: ([[1]]). Looking so forward to seeing your students' contributions. Look for a follow-up email from me about how to move forward and some helpful resources for your students, and you can always email me at jami@wikiedu.org if you have any questions or needs. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:00, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

@Jami (Wiki Ed):Thank you! MMHobbs (talk) 16:42, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Sara Jorgensen

Institution

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Course title and description

History 2000: Introduction to Historical Research and Writing. This is a methods class for entry-level undergraduates. In addition to editing Wikipedia, the students will also be completing a standard research paper project. Their timeline for Wikipedia work is a bit compressed in comparison with the provided templates for this reason; they'll be working faster, but writing is the focus of the class. Their work will broadly focus on the history of the city of Chattanooga and its environs.

Number of students

c. 40 students in two sections.

Start and end dates

8.18-12.01.2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: Womump (talk) 05:42, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Good idea--I especially like the focus on the home city, which could well become a model for local history courses. Rjensen (talk) 06:26, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

@Womump: Thank you for requesting the user right and creating your draft course page. I've granted them and moved your draft into a course page here: Education Program:University of Tennessee at Chattanooga/Introduction to Historical Research and Writing (Fall 2014) ^{Education Program talk:University of Tennessee at Chattanooga/Introduction to Historical Research and Writing (Fall 2014)/support}. Please look for an email from me (jami@wikiedu.org) with some more information and resources for you and your students! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:52, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Professor hayes (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Eden-Reneé Hayes

Institution

Bard College at Simon's Rock

Course title and description

Course Name: Social Psychology Course Description: Every day you do much of what social psychologists do. You try to understand people. Perhaps you have tried to figure out why someone behaved a certain way. You may even have predicted that someone would behave a certain way, and found that in fact they did. (“See I knew he/she would do that”). As social psychologists, we try and understand the complexities of people and we try and answer some big questions. Why do relationships end? How can a person say one thing and then do the opposite? How could someone be so cruel? In this course, I will teach you about the theories and research that inform our understanding of these complex questions. Assignments: In addition to creating or editing Wikipedia pages, students will be leading class, taking exams and writing two papers. Level: Advanced Undergraduates

Number of students

12

Start and end dates

August 25-December 20

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Professor hayes (talk) 04:58, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

@Professor hayes: Thank you for your interest in teaching with Wikipedia. I granted you the user right since it looks like class has already started and you'll need a course page for your students. Here is the course page: Education Program:Bard College at Simon's Rock/Social Psychology (Fall 2014). I'll also send you an email with more resources, specifically for psych students, and so we can be in touch about any questions or concerns you have so far. Thanks! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:05, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: czar ♔ (course page draft)

Institution

Clark Street Community School

Course title and description

Current Wikipedia ambassador, experienced editor, doc student in history and philosophy of education, co-teaching seminar on Wikipedia at local charter school, high school students. The emphasis is on showing how WP works under the hood. The idea is that understanding WP's principles and policies will change the way they read and use Wikipedia. The object is to find where each student fits best in contributing to Wikipedia, not solely article writing.

Number of students

11

Start and end dates

September 2, 2014 to January 23, 2015

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911 @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman

czar ♔ 05:55, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• Hi Czar, I'm going to go ahead and grant you the userright based pretty much on my confidence in you and the brief description here - I haven't reviewed your course page. As with anything, please feel free to approach me, or the board in general, if you have any questions about best practices etc. Kevin Gorman (talk) 12:49, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

@Kevin Gorman, thanks! Could you add the userright for my co-teacher too? User:Lameredemax czar ♔ 20:10, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

 Done and I added myself as an online volunteer in case you need anything --Guerillero | My Talk 23:06, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Benjamin Mako Hill (course page draft)

Name

User:Benjamin Mako Hill

Institution

University of Washington

Course title and description

The course is Interpersonal Media (COM 482) and is the online communities course at the University of Washington's Department of Communication. I am teaching a new version of this course for the first time and plan to integrate participation in Wikipedia as a major part of the course.

The course seeks to help students understand how relationships and groups are formed using social media with a particular focus on collaboration and the creation and maintaince of online communities. On eimportant goal of the course as I plan to teach it is to help students analyze, understand, and contribute to an existing online communities constructively. Toward that end, we will spend a big chunk of the class understanding Wikipedia, it's policies, norms, and goals, and then putting this knowledge into action by having students contribute to Wikipedia and reflecting on this process. The primary goal will be understand and reflect on this process. The course is similar in scope and design to Joseph Reagle's online communities course.

The course is taught in the evening degree program at UW primarily to "non-traditional" (i.e., older working) undergraduate students.

I (User:Benjamin Mako Hill) am a professor at the University of Washington, a Wikipedia contributor for more a decade, and a member of the Wikimedia Foundation advisory board. Most of his research focuses on peer production and wikis including serveral published pieces on Wikipedia. I am familiar with Wikipedia's norms and policies. I am not currently planning on working with any WikiProjects or other experienced editors but if it becomes necessary, I may get others involved. I am extremely excited about integrating Wikipedia as a central piece of my course.

Number of students

30-35

Start and end dates

September 24 through December 3, 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --—mako๛ 20:47, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support I have talked to this person about their plans with Wikipedia and I feel like they understand Wikipedia and its community. I support this person having instructor userrights. I also know this person personally. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:11, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
• Granted Of course you can have this user right! I also moved your draft to the course page here: Education Program:University of Washington/Interpersonal Media (Fall 2014), and I'm looking forward to seeing the work from you and your students! I'll also send over some resources that you should find useful. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:43, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Cubfan29 (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Erin Hinchey

Institution

Hood College

Course title and description

Environmental Economics looks at the environment using the tools of microeconomic analysis. The students are all advanced undergraduates, and they will be contributing to Wikipedia as their major writing assignment for the semester.

Number of students

9

Start and end dates

The course starts on August 25th and ends on December 12th, 2014.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Cubfan29 (talk) 14:41, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I have emailed this instructor to ask for more details about the Wikipedia assignment. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:11, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Follow-up, I granted this instructor the user right and started her course page for her. She has taken into account notability requirements, has her students expanding stubs or creating new articles under her advisement, and is requiring them to complete the student training. I think it sounds like a really great assignment! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:36, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for Course coordinator rights

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.

---

Name

Jan Ainali (WMSE) (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}

Organisation

Wikimedia Sverige

Rationale

I have this permission on Swedish Wikipedia, and we will now start working with university professors that will mostly work on English Wikipedia.

@Jan Ainali (WMSE): Jan, I think you should have this if you're supporting courses here. An admin will have to grant you the user right. Just out of interest, can you give a little background about the instructors you'll be working with on English Wikipedia? Maybe we have some appropriate resources to share, depending on what the students are editing. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:16, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

 Done per Jami (Wiki Ed)'s endorsement; validation of SUL accounts Special:CentralAuth/Jan Ainali (WMSE). Note: epcoordinator may be subsequently removed for inactivity on enwiki. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:32, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Having an issue with the userrights interface, checking. Log shows permission was added, however getting Conflict of user rights changes! Please review and confirm your changes. error and not displaying in user groups. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:37, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

May be a replication lag; CentralAuth shows group membership is in place, ListUsers group listing includes users, but does not list as an included group. The joblog is ~27,000 tasks lagging right now. Please let us know if this is not working after a day. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:43, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Completed, appears correctly now. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:39, 8 September 2014 (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.

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

Name

Nova Myhill

Institution

New College of Florida

Course title and description

Twentieth-Century British and American Drama:Realism and its Discontents. This is an introductory modern drama course, aimed at undergraduates in their first or second years. I am asking each student to familiarize him/herself with one major author whose work we are not covering in the course and either find a wikipedia article on one of their plays that needs improvement or create a new article on one of their plays that has no entry. The object of the assignment is to give the students a targeted research assignment, familiarize them with how wikipedia works, and hopefully to improve the quality of the content in a very uneven area of wikipedia. I will be working with Teresa Burress <tburress>, New College of Florida's wikipedia ambassador.

Number of students

16

Start and end dates

Start 8/25/14, end 12/12/14

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Nmyhillncf (talk) 01:08, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@Nmyhillncf: Hi, Nova! Thank you for your request here—I've created your course page for you here: Education Program:New College of Florida/Twentieth-Century British and American Drama: Realism and its Discontents (Fall 2014). Now you can have your students enroll from the button on the top left, and I will also send you an email with more resources! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 01:24, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: saiabhishekgv

Saiabhishekgv (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   Because wikipedia is popular as online Encylopedia and being a part of such organisation I would feel proud such that my technical and managerial would help to enhance the quality and growth of the organisation.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   I am from Sree Vidyanikethan Engineering College,India.I work as Campus ambassador for our college to Webtek Labs Pvt. Ltd.

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   I am undergraduate from Sree Vidyanikethan Engineering College,INDIA.

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   It is excellent.

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I have good communication and managerial skills.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Saiabhishekgv (talk) 20:27, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Do you currently contribute under another username? — xaosflux ^Talk 21:51, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Dmak78 (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Institution

Course title and description

Number of students

Start and end dates

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Dmak78 (talk) 23:32, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

@Dmak78: Hi—please fill in the details listed above and add some information about your course to your draft course page. If you need help, feel free to email me at jami@wikiedu.org. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:24, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation August monthly report published

The August edition of the Wiki Education Foundation monthly report is now available on Commons, on-wiki, and on our blog. Feedback and questions are most welcome.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:46, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Remove me from this course?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T72748

@Jami (Wiki Ed): (or whoever else can help), While poking around on Joseph Reagle's course I accidently clicked the button and got added as a student in the course. Although Joseph and I both see the button that says remove this student next to my name, it doesn't seem to work in either case. Maybe somebody here can remove me? Thanks for the help! —mako๛ 22:26, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Won't let me do it either and I'm both +coursecoordinator and +sysop. Looks like you found a fun new bug. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:33, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
  • It worked for me back in September 2013. But I tried the above and it cannot disenroll. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 23:04, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Eeek! I'll look into the bug. You might be able to disenroll yourself using the "Disenroll" tab/button near the search box at the top. (It may be in the overflow pulldown.) @Benjamin Mako Hill: --Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:33, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@Sage (Wiki Ed): Thanks for helping and for the quick response! I don't see a Disenroll link but I do see an Enroll link. Here's a screenshot of what I see (not a long term link). If this is helpful for the bug, please go ahead and upload the screenshot to Bugzilla. —mako๛ 00:12, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Benjamin Mako Hill: The "Disenroll" link should be in the "More" pulldown next to the search box. (The big green Enroll button is just part of a template.) I tested this and it should work. I don't have any explanation why the "remove from course" path isn't working, though. The very similar "remove as reviewer" link (which appears if a student has an assigned article, and someone has added themselves as a reviewer) still works.--ragesoss (talk) 00:23, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

@Sage (Wiki Ed): Great! That seems to have worked. —mako๛ 00:32, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

@Sage (Wiki Ed): I forgot to mention I was having this problem, too. You're right that the "disenroll" from the drop-down works, but I'm unable to unenroll people, which my user right typically allows me to do. Any ideas about this—I'm assuming it's the same bug. Just trying to remove instructors who have accidentally enrolled themselves as students, so we have the best data possible :). Let me know what you think! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:52, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Jami: A recent change to MediaWiki core broke this, but we've got a patch already finished. It should work again by next Thursday, I think. (The following Thursday, at the latest.)--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:16, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Jane Lehr, Sandi Clement

Institution

California Polytechnic State University

Course title and description

ES/WGS 350: Gender, Race, Science & Technology. This is an upper-level course in Ethnic Studies at Women's & Gender Studies. Students include majors and minors in these departments, as well as students fulfilling a technology and society and/or U.S. Cultural Pluralism requirement. The Wikipedia portion of the class will be focusing, primarily, on women and/or people of color in science and engineering, and their representations on Wikipedia. Students will be asked to improve existing articles (including copyediting), contribute to talk forums, and/or add new articles as necessary.

Number of students

70

Start and end dates

9/22/14 to 12/12/14

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Jlehrcalpoly (talk) 20:27, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

@Jlehrcalpoly: You already have the instructor user right from your previous assignment, and I see you've created your course page (Education Program:California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo/ES 350 (Fall 2014)). Please let me know if you still need another page for a different course or if you're set to go! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:49, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Campus ambassador application status?

I had submitted a campus ambassador application after taking the time to do the training, but I haven't been granted the appropriate rights and I'm not able to create a course page for the faculty member I'm working with. I might be missing something about this process, but if anyone can give me some tips on completing the process and being officially deemed a campus ambassador, please let me know. It looks like the application was archived with any action taken on it. Thanks in advance. Msitar (talk) 02:28, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Remove course wizard pages?

Can someone with admin bits delete the course wizard pages that were created in my userspace when I started the course? I've created a single page for my course to avoid the template opaqueness that's easier for me to edit and maintain and I just don't students stumbling into or being confused by the old ones. Pages include (at least): 1 2 3 4 —mako๛ 02:41, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

• @Benjamin Mako Hill: Those 4 are  Done. I don't want to go rummaging around your subpages and accidentally delete something that looks like a course page but isn't so if there are others just ping me or plop {{Db-u1}} on them and they'll usually get deleted fairly quickly. Protonk (talk) 13:40, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks @Protonk:! —mako๛ 16:29, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Prof. Eric A. Youngstrom (course page draft)

Name

Professor Eric A. Youngstrom, Ph.D.

Institution

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Course title and description

Developmental Psychopathology (PSYC 500) -- this is a capstone course in the Psychology Major, taken by seniors as a transition between undergraduate and graduate course formats. Wikipedia is used in some small and one medium sized exercise as a way of having the students interact with content generated by graduate students, learning how to critically evaluate it against material from their text, from the Web, and from peer reviewed journals. We have been working to develop the project with input from Frank Jones, the Regional Wikipedia Ambassador, and Emily Jack, UNC Electronic Sources Reference Librarian.

Number of students

36 students, and one ambassador

Start and end dates

The course extends from August to December 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Prof. Eric A. Youngstrom 02:09, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Instructor right granted. Frankcjones (talk) 05:20, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Monica J Kelley

Institution

Millsaps College

Course title and description

ARTS 2570 - Contemporary Art History (advanced undergraduates) IDST 2400.03 - Modernity in 19th Century Art (undergraduates) Both courses will be adding information drawn from their research papers to Wikipedia - either through a new entry or adding to an existing page. We're all very excited about this and I'll be presenting a "Lessons Learned" talk to the faculty on how well this process went.

Number of students

8 in ARTS 2570 and 19 in IDST 2400.04

Start and end dates

Started August 27 and ends December 10

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Jovanme (talk) 23:04, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Aaron Shaw

Institution

Northwestern University

Course title and description

Course title: Online Communities & Crowds (Communication Studies 378)

'Subjects:' This course introduces students to the history, dynamics, and challenges of collaboration in online communities & crowds. It is an upper-level undergraduate course with approximately 40-45 students. Wikipedia constitutes a major part of the syllabus and the six editing assignments will make up a major piece of the experiential component of the course. The plan for these assignments will follow the very similar approach to that used by Joseph Reagle in his Online Communities course at Northeastern University.
I would still like to identify an experienced editor to work with on this project (I am not a completely inexperienced editor, but it would be great to get some help/advice) and would welcome suggestions (especially if there happens to be an ambassador or other experienced editor based in the Chicagoland area who might be willing to come visit the class at some point!). I taught a very similar course last year, but the Wikipedia editing assignments were much less structured and did not utilize any of the awesome resources available through the Education Program.

Number of students

40-45 (enrollment will be finalized within two weeks).

Start and end dates

September 24-December 5 (however, the Wikipedia assignments will all occur during October and November).

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Aaronshaw (talk) 03:25, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

@Aaronshaw: Hey, Aaron! Glad you're participating more formally this time around. I granted you the user right and created your course page from your draft (here: Education Program:Northwestern University/Online Communities and Crowds (Fall 2014) ^{Education Program talk:Northwestern University/Online Communities and Crowds (Fall 2014)/support}). I will help you look for someone in the Chicago area—email me at jami@wikiedu.org! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 04:10, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

@Jami (Wiki Ed): Thanks so much, Jami! I'll be updating my course website and such in the next couple of days and will link to everything from the course page as I do. Also, I dug into the list of online ambassadors and discovered that there's one person there who is a Chicagoan, so I've left them a talk page message to see if they're interested in participating in any way. In the meantime, please let me know if you have any leads (I'm at aaronshaw@northwestern.edu) and I'll follow up soon too. Aaronshaw (talk) 04:20, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: ongmianli

Ongmianli (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I am excited about helping disseminate evidence-based assessments in mood disorders, and this is the best way for me to help students who are interested in doing so.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   I am based at UNC-Chapel Hill, and I plan to work with UNC as a Campus Ambassador.

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   I am a clinical psychology doctoral candidate at UNC. My research interests include accurate assessment in pediatric bipolar disorder and dissemination of evidence-based asessments.

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   I have submitted evidence-based assessment pages for pediatric bipolar disorder on Wikipedia.

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: @Frankcjones: --Ongmianli (talk) 01:19, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

I met with Ongmianli on 9/22 at UNC. He completed the online training and made his request to be a campus ambassador on 9/28. I've made the change to his user rights. Frankcjones (talk) 16:20, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application:ManivannanMcet

ManivannanMcet (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   YOUR ANSWER To enhance my Passion to learn, share, lead and grow. To join and work with the community of people who are passionate about taking up responsibilities and to work on mutual benefits. To inspire my peers by sharing and promoting Wikipedia’s extra-ordinary contributions by constantly playing a role of an evangelist in the community.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   YOUR ANSWER I Belong to India and I plan to work for Dr.Mahalingam College of Engineering and Technology

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   YOUR ANSWER Bachelor of Engineering(Computer Science)

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) I am closely associated with various WikiPedia like platforms namely Mozilla(Student Ambassador and Contributor)and various other technical forums.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --ManivannanMcet (talk) 09:51, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

•  Not done no other edits beside this page. --Guerillero | My Talk 18:49, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: SarahEMC2 (talk) 17:47, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Name

Sarah Einstein

Institution

Ohio University

Course title and description

ENG 3950: Creative Writing Workshop (Nonfiction) Fall 2014 This is an advanced creative writing workshop focusing on nonfiction writing. Our goals for engaging with Wikipedia are to create or update author pages for writers doing significant work in creative nonfiction. Students have each been assigned a specific writer to read and research. We're working with Campus Volunteer user:Matthewvetter who will be assisting with editing tutorials, workshops, and Q&A.

Number of students

10

Start and end dates

9/25/14 to 12/12/14

@SarahEMC2: I granted you the user right, since you're working closely with Matthew. If you send me an email at jami@wikiedu.org, I can help you get your course page started, students enrolled, and make sure they have the student training and other printed materials to prepare them for their assignment. Looking forward to hearing from you! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:54, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Randall Livingstone

Institution

Endicott College

Course title and description

The course is CMM115 Intro to Social Media, which covers theories, concepts, and practices of various social media. Students in the course are generally in their first or second year of college. As my previous academic research (dissertation work and publications, etc.) has been about Wikipedia, I've made learning about and working with Wikipedia a major project for this class. Our project will take place over three months of the term and include numerous stages of research, writing, revision, and feedback from the community. I have spoken on-wiki and on the phone with User:Sage Ross (WFM) about this project.

Number of students

47

Start and end dates

Fall 2014 (Sept 3 - Dec 19)

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --UOJComm (talk) 14:18, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Comments

• @UOJComm: 47 students is rather large. How are you going to mitigate any plagiarism problems with a class of this size? --Guerillero | My Talk 18:42, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

@UOJComm: I went ahead and granted you the user right, and I moved your draft to your course page (here: Education Program:Endicott College/Intro to Social Media (Fall 2014)). User:Guerillero, Randall spoke to Sage on the phone late last week, and the plan is to get a very basic edit to Wikipedia. They will work in big groups, and I believe they talked about the concerns with larger classes (and how to avoid them). Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:05, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

That is better than some of the alternatives; sounds good. Best of luck. --Guerillero | My Talk 19:08, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both for the review and comments. Yes, we are taking a slow and organized approach, and I look forward to feedback from the community and Wiki Ed staff and volunteers. UOJComm (talk) 19:30, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: justshubh

Justshubh (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I have great Passion for Wikipedia projects and i would like this extraordinary team to:

• To enhance my Passion to learn, share, lead and grow.
• To join and work with the community of people who are passionate about taking up responsibilities and to work on mutual benefits.
• To inspire my peers by sharing and promoting Wikipedia’s extra-ordinary contributions by constantly playing a role of an evangelist in the communit

1. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   I live In New Delhi, India. I would love to work for Jamia Hamdard.

2. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   Bachelor of Technology(Computer Science).

3. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   I currently have no experience regarding Wikimedia Projects but I would start it soon.

4. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I had worked as a Campus Ambassador for Mozilla and Twenty19.Besides that I have good communication and editorial skills and have a command over Queen's English.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Justshubh (talk) 07:22, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

I had submitted a campus ambassador application after taking the time to do the training, but I haven't been granted the appropriate rights and I'm not able to create a course page for the faculty member I'm working with. I might be missing something about this process, but if anyone can give me some tips on completing the process and being officially deemed a campus ambassador, please let me know. It looks like the application was archived with any action taken on it. Thanks in advance. JustShubh (talk) 1.00 pm, 28 September 2014 (IST)

•  Not done I need some editing history to make sure you have a working understanding of wikipedia. The fact that you hand wrote your signature does not make me think you have enough clue, yet, to have this role. --Guerillero | My Talk 18:46, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: Swatantrasingh

Swatantrasingh (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I have leadership quality and i want to apply my leadership quality and improve my communication skill,Presentation skill and leadership quality.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   Bhopal,(Madhya Pradesh) , i plan to work with Radharaman Institute Of Technology & Science.

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   Presently i am pursuing Bachelor of Engineering in Computer science from Radharaman Institute Of Technology & Science , Bhopal(Madhya Pradesh)

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   i have added some educational institutions and edited many of pages.

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I have good communication and editorial skills.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Swatantra Singh 04:19, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

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

Name

Tom Van Daele

Institution

Thomas More University College, Antwerp, Belgium

Course title and description

As technology becomes more prominent in every aspect of our lives, psychology needs to answer the question to what extent psychology can serve as a guideline to shape technology and to what extent technology is shaping our behavior and psychological functioning. This is the focus of Applied Psychology & Technology, being taught to Belgian bachelor students in applied psychology.

Number of students

On average, 40 bachelor students follow this course on a yearly basis.

Start and end dates

The Wikipedia course will only probably start in the academic year 2015-2016, but the preparation for the successful start would be undertaken in the forthcoming year.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --ToegepastePsychologieThomasMore (talk) 16:20, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

@ToegepastePsychologieThomasMore: Hi, Tom! Though I think you should be able to use this tool for your class, I haven't yet granted you the user right. It looks like you have at least a few months to finalize your course plans, and I think Floor Koudijs plans to speak to you first about your work in Belgium. One recommendation I'd like to make is that your students (whose first language is presumably French or Dutch) edit the language Wikipedia of their native tongue. We have found over the years that students excel when editing in the language in which they are most fluent. I'm sure Floor will talk to you about the assignment you'd like to set up in Belgium! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:51, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jami (Wiki Ed): Hi Jami, Thank for the quick reply. As you have observed correctly, I am in no hurry at all to obtain the user right. However, I do look forward to hearing from Floor Koudijs on how we can conceptualize the future project. On thing that was not quite clear in my initial application, for example, is that this course is actually being taught in English to both Belgian and international (Erasmus) students. This means that we have over ten nationalities in that small class and each of them contributing to Wikipedia in their native tongue will probably prove to be quite a hasslet. Last year (and this year actually as well) we opted to prepare contributions off site, with my colleague and me source checking and proofreading texts prior to adding them to Wikipedia. This is not really ideal and I therefore look forward to exploring new opportunities! ToegepastePsychologieThomasMore (talk) 06:09, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

@ToegepastePsychologieThomasMore: Hi Tom! I would love to talk to you further around your plans to organize this course, and see where I can be of help. It might make more sense to take this discussion offline. Please email me at fkoudijs "at" wikimedia.org so we can discuss further. In the meantime, if you would like to see what general resources are available, please take a look at our Education Portal on Outreach, where you will find online training for students and professors, brochures and other materials that can be helpful for you. I also suggest you check out Belgium's country page so you can connect to other educators that are using Wikipedia in their classroom. FKoudijs (WMF) (talk) 16:57, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Welcome two new Wiki Ed staff

Hi all, just wanted to flag a blog post on the Wiki Ed blog welcoming two new staff members. Helaine Blumenthal joins us as Classroom Program Manager, and Eryk Salvaggio is our new Communications Associate. Please join me in welcoming Helaine and Eryk. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:58, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Welcome! — xaosflux ^Talk 00:24, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Sharon Irish

Institution

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Course title and description

Collaborations in Feminism and Technology is a graduate-level seminar. The Wikipedia assignment--for most students--is intended to introduce them to Wikipedia and provide hands-on editing experience of a modest nature. I have a couple of people very familiar with Wikipedia and they may choose to include the Wikipedia part of the course in their larger project. We will focus on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Feminism/Students

Number of students

9

Start and end dates

August 26-December 15, 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Leeirish (talk) 17:28, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

@Leeirish: Hi Sharon! Thanks for documenting your plans here and on your draft course page. I created your course page here: Education Program:University of Illinois/Collaborations in Feminism and Technology (Fall 2014), so now your students can enroll from the button on the top left (as long as they're logged in). Please send me an email at jami@wikiedu.org so I can make sure you have all the training materials you and your students need! Also, if you can expand the description to include what the Wikipedia part of the assignment is, that would be great. Otherwise, we can discuss it and add it in there afterward. Thanks, Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:48, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Joel PARKER

Institution

SUNY Plattsburgh

Course title and description

Bio 401, Cell Biology with lab, This is a required fourth year course. My plan is to have the students edit and improve cell biology stubs and possibly some established wiki pages where there are glaring errors and omissions. We do not have time for a full Wikipedia course like in the examples so I am aiming for taking about 4 weeks and just going for the edits and commenting on the discussion boards about their edits and additions. The objective is to get them looking critically at wikipedia and evaluating their sources. I am also hoping that they will find it more engaging to actually be making a contribution.

Number of students

22

Start and end dates

course already started, ends early December. I would like to start having the students sign up soon.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Jparcoeur (talk) 21:17, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jparcoeur: Thank you for posting here and for drafting your assignment. I went ahead and created your course page (here: Education Program:SUNY Plattsburgh/Cell Biology (Fall 2014)) and added you as the instructor. Please look out for an email from me (jami@wikiedu.org), introducing you to some of your support for this term and to some materials that are available for your students. I recommend you do have them work on stub articles, since they'll be spending very little time getting to know Wikipedia's ins and outs. I also think it's a good idea for you to assign the online student training for them to complete, as it does overview some important things about the appropriate tone for Wikipedia, good resources they should be using, and how to avoid plagiarism/copyright violations. We will be in touch soon! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:57, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Rhetoric of "patrolled", explanation for students

Hello, all, I'm so glad this group is here! I'm new to being a course ambassador, and was suddenly feeling unsure around my response to a student question so wanted to check with everyone here. A few students reported getting notifications that their sandboxes and other sub-pages were "patrolled", which as new users they seemed to find really off-putting and a little bit forbidding. I think it's the sound of the word "patrol". My basic explanation will be something like "it's actually a good thing, something that editors leave for other editors saying your page is 'OK' and doesn't need to go into any review queues". But... is that accurate? I'm realizing I'm fuzzy on the details of how patrol actually works, and I'm also looking for a good brief description that will make sense to / be welcoming to students. Thanks! AmandaRR123 (talk) 14:41, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

@AmandaRR123: Thanks for asking; you have nothing to worry about. Every new page in Wikipedia (including sandboxes) gets checked by new page patrollers. They check pages to ensure the content isn't objectionable (libelous, copyright violation, etc.). The patrol doesn't review content like our Articles for Creation WikiProject or the respective WikiProject assessment editors. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:25, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

@Chris troutman: Thanks! That makes more sense: I was trying to think through the different ways content is checked/reviewed, and how to discuss that in class, so your explanation is very helpful. AmandaRR123 (talk) 20:15, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Adding a second instructor to my course

Hello! SnehaNar is the Teaching Assistant for my course, Online Communities & Crowds ^{Education Program talk:Northwestern University/Online Communities and Crowds (Fall 2014)/support} and it would be great if she could have Instructor privileges too. Please let either me or Sneha know if you have any questions. Thanks, Aaronshaw (talk) 00:51, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

 Done — xaosflux ^Talk 03:01, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Note, this should get you working for right now, one of the WikiEd people may adjust exactly HOW this is configured. (Note to WikiEd: Added to course, added epinst usergroup). — xaosflux ^Talk 03:04, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Brilliant, thank you again, @Xaosflux:! Aaronshaw (talk) 03:40, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation Monthly Report

Hello Everyone! I just wanted to share the Wiki Education Foundation's Monthly Report for September 2014. It's available via PDF, on wiki, or our blog.

If you have any comments or feedback, do let me know.

Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:11, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Another stealth class

User talk:Westhaddon. We should be hearing from them soon. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:02, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Class project issues

@Jaobar: I just wanted to discuss concerns about Education Program:University of Ontario Institute of Technology/New Media Theory and Practice (Fall 2014). First, and most serious concern, these reverts to good-faith edits with the edit summary "removing non-student edits" left apparently by the course instructor: [2], [3] and others. Is this valid Wikipedia practice, especially given that the reverted contributors were making valid issue notifications on the draft articles in question? Second, I'm also concerned that student editors in the class are making problematic edits such as uploading copyvio images (File:Hotforfoodblog1.jpg, File:Hotforfoodmask.jpg and probably several others), which suggest insufficient oversight and education on basic Wikipedia principles. Finally, I have not received responses from two students who I've contacted about issues or suggestions at User talk:DeannaLFoster and User talk:Vmoscoso, not a problem in and of itself but does suggest that they may have not been informed of basic wikiquette. — Brianhe (talk) 01:55, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

@Iain Mcpherson:, I see you're listed on the course page as the campus ambassador but you're not a campus ambassador nor do you have an edit history. What's going on there? Chris Troutman (talk) 15:32, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. I reached out to the instructor today. It looks like he has been trying to help the student editor resolve the copyright concerns, and I think the "non-student edits" comment probably had something to do with wanting her sandbox to be a safe space where she could edit. He genuinely does care about improving Wikipedia, and I don't think he realized what that sounded like. I reminded him that this is what Wikipedia is all about, and I'm sure he will agree. I will let you know what I hear back (or he may come comment here), but we also talked about leaving the content in the sandbox if the topic doesn't meet notability requirements, as that seemed like another concern to me. He will also reiterate to his students about copyright on Wikipedia—is there anything else that you think needs to happen here? It looks like the student editor is trying to follow copyright policy—otherwise, we will make sure it gets deleted. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:30, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi all, I am the professor for the class(es) in question, my name is Jonathan Obar User:Jaobar. Let me begin by saying thank you for your comments and for your engagement with my classes. Once material begins to get moved to the mainspace (after grading and thorough review by my team), I would really appreciate your continued support and comments. For those of you who are not familiar with my work with the Education Program, I have been a teaching fellow since 2011, and with Jami, a lead recruiter and advisor for the Canadian program specifically. I have integrated WP into a number of my classes, some at Michigan State, some at the University of Toronto, and now at the University of Ontario Institute for Technology. I also frequently deliver, organize and run WP workshops at different universities, and have done so at schools and conferences across Canada and the U.S. If you are interested in my qualifications, I would ask that you begin by reviewing these blog posts Why Wikipedia Does Belong in the Classroom - ReadWriteWeb and From My Dirty Little Secret to My Favorite Tool for E-Pedagogy: How One University Professor Learned to Love Wikipedia - WMF Blog. I would also encourage you to review my previous courses, to see the quality work that I've carefully supervised:

• Old Canada Education Program Portal - 40 classes managed

My Own Classes

• Media and Telecommunication Policy - Michigan State SP2011 (120 students)
• Telecommunication Policy Analysis - Michigan State SP2012
• Knowledge, Media Culture and Society - University of Toronto SP2014

In response to some of your concerns:

@User:Brianhe "First, and most serious concern, these reverts to good-faith edits with the edit summary "removing non-student edits"".

Again, my thanks for your engagement with the students. A little more background on my methods:

I like to do the training myself, in class, in person. I like to watch students learn the different pieces in the order that I have seen work time and time again. I have devoted considerable class time to training (considerable portions of 4/5 classes so far). I have also met with many students privately, and answered many emails to ensure clarity. I have provided students with cheat sheets from WP, and access to lots of resources. Students have been told that they must ONLY make edits in their sandboxes. Only after my team has thoroughly reviewed and approved material, and students have participated in my workshop/class on properly moving material to the mainspace, are they then allowed to do so (under my careful supervision). Will some students get too excited about WP and start editing the mainspace early? Will some students forget instructions? Yes, as we have seen. However, I see 3 or 4 mistakes out of 150 students (when access is so easy), as a victory. I should add that I have been very engaged in monitoring students, and as you can see, I have addressed all potentially serious violations of my class policy. To ensure that student work remains in the sandboxes, and is protected until given approval for moving to the mainspace, in this one instance, I have reverted edits. Not because I didn't feel your edits were good (I very much appreciate the time you put into this work), but because the material needed to be returned to the sandboxes, where only approved (by me) editors are allowed to edit student work. I see this tough grip as essential to protecting students as well as the eventual integrity of the encyclopedia product. The alternative, a more relaxed approach, does not work with larger classes. Please accept my apologies if you have been put-off by my decision to move material back to sandboxes; however, I hope you would WP:AGF, and see what it is that I am trying to do.

Specific to the issue notifications, I did remove these because they are not appropriate for placement in student sandboxes.

@User:Brianhe "Second, I'm also concerned that student editors in the class are making problematic edits such as uploading copyvio images (File:Hotforfoodblog1.jpg, File:Hotforfoodmask.jpg and probably several others), which suggest insufficient oversight and education on basic Wikipedia principles."

Again, thank you for your quick response to this potential copyvio, which in actuality was not a copyvio, because the new editor (who got a bit excited and should not have been editing the mainspace), added some images before we discussed the proper way to do this. There are a few very important points that I would like to make here about how this issue is being framed here (I do feel your comments on the student talk page were great, and definitely in compliance with WP:BITE). At the same time, the framing here on the noticeboard concerns me. Let me be clear about this, there was no copyright issue, as it has been addressed. If all editors (new or old), are expected to do everything perfectly the first time, and corrections within a day or two are unacceptable and grounds for "getting upset", then I feel that the community is reacting unfairly. We should be given the chance to make small mistakes, and then given the opportunity to correct them. I will not accept anything less, as this is a clear violation of WP:BITE, and WP:AGF.

As far as I can tell, there have been no problems with my class so far. Questioning copyright vio is not a problem, it is part of the process of ensuring images are uploaded correctly. If no copyright clearance is given, images are deleted, end of story. What I'm trying to get at here is that I don't think classes will benefit if, automatically, small steps towards accuracy are blown out of proportion to be seen as "problems" that will then translate into community overreactions. Context is necessary. Patience is necessary. Fairness is necessary. Granted, should things spiral out of control (as I have witnessed with other classes where profs are not engaged) then okay, but we are nowhere near that point, and we WILL NOT get there because I am very engaged, as is my team, and we will not allow the situation to escalate. Without hesitation, I will move material back to sandboxes should issues arise. All of my students will be aware of how serious I am about this. I have already issued a second warning in class about editing before I give the okay. Frankly, something that goes against what I believe WP to be about, but something I realize that Wikipedians would appreciate.

@User:Brianhe "Finally, I have not received responses from two students who I've contacted about issues or suggestions at User talk:DeannaLFoster and User talk:Vmoscoso, not a problem in and of itself but does suggest that they may have not been informed of basic wikiquette."

None of my students have been given permission to engage with the community yet. Only User:DeannaLFoster has been allowed to respond to you, under my supervision yesterday, in order to fix her potential copyvio. You will not receive messages from my students until they have properly instructed as to how to appropriately engage the community. This means that User:Vmoscoso will not be responding to you at this point. Once material has been graded, and students are taught how to properly move material and engage, then I will allow students to respond.

Please understand that this tight grip is the best strategy for ensuring that students edit correctly.

@User:Chris troutman, Iain is my TA, and is an ambassador in training.

My sincerest thanks again for your questions and your engagement. Looking forward to next steps, and working together to making sure this exercise is a positive experience for our Wikipedians-in-training and the community as a whole. Best, --Jaobar (talk) 14:08, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jaobar: It is not within your remit to appoint your Teacher's Assistant as a campus ambassador. The campus ambassador's function is entirely different from that of a professor and is not a deputy teacher. Wikipedia's ambassadors are Wikipedians with sufficient experience to address the community's concerns, as expressed above. I would recommend you recruit an online ambassador; Dendenn is at University of Toronto Mississauga and might be able to help, as well. I'd also recommend contacting Nikkimaria as she's Canadian and very experienced with the program. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:44, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

@User:Chris troutman Just wanted to clarify that a lot of instructors do add their TAs as a "campus volunteer" on the course page, as this is the only way to utilize the tools that we created to help them track and grade student edits. They also receive the Ambassador training so they can familiarize themselves with Wikipedia to help the students, which I think is great. I think it's best to have as many trained people as possible supporting student editors and helping them through the Wikipedia assignment. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:00, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm still puzzled and concerned. I think that having a whole community of editors and quasi-owned pages that are abiding by completely different standard of conduct from the rest of us is problematic. For instance, there is nothing on their draft pages to indicate that this is their (your) expectation, so it is to be expected that there will be other conflicts with good-faith editors coming along and making corrections to drafts. Then getting frustrated when the editors are not "allowed" to reply to issues on their user pages, which is obviously the standard of conduct for every other Wikipedian. Does the WP Education leadership agree that this is how the program is supposed to work? Brianhe (talk) 18:32, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

No. All of our recommendations are that classes work within the existing policies and infrastructure on Wikipedia. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:37, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

If that is the case then I don't see how it squares with the instructor's comment here "None of my students have been given permission to engage with the community" or his edit summary "removing non-student edits" at all. That sounds like an explicit attempt to create a private space outside the existing policies and infrastructure. — Brianhe (talk) 19:36, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

We can give recommendations (which most instructors do follow), but there's only so much control someone outside of the classroom can have on the assignment. We have a lot of best practices (and Jonathan does follow most of them), but they won't always all make it into the classroom. I think a more effective means of communicating with him here is for us to make a clear argument about why this is as important aspect for his course. Since this is something you've come across and are interested in changing, do you want to put together a draft of some text about why this is important? Then I can take a look, make some edits, and pass it on to Jonathan. Let me know what you think, and thanks for taking an interest in improving classroom assignments. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:14, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Jami, you're a paid employee of the WEF. You write the text of why this is important. Shame on you for trying to pawn your job off on Brianhe. They did you the courtesy of letting you know there's a problem. If all you're going to do is throw up your hands and tell the community that you can't fix it then you really serve no purpose here. @Frank Schulenburg (Wiki Ed): @LiAnna (Wiki Ed): Is this how the WEF intends to function? Chris Troutman (talk) 21:27, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

@Chris troutman: Of course I can write the text, but clearly it is not an issue that we have previously deemed as one of the top priorities when communicating with instructors. If somebody in the community has intense feelings about this one way or another, I want to give them the opportunity to share that information with instructors we support on Wikipedia. I'm not sure my thoughts will represent Brianhe's concerns, so this is his chance to at least give me some bullet points about what it is, exactly, that is the biggest problem to him. I cannot promise Jonathan (or other instructors) will follow the advice, especially if there are very real privacy concerns at play, but I can at least present an argument that is coming from the community of editors that make Wikipedia work. This is typically one of the best ways to reach instructors, as they admire Wikipedia and want to work with editors rather than against them. But for this to be an honest communication with the instructor, I'd like the feedback to actually come from the community. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:55, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

@Chris troutman: Writing help materials about Wikipedia guidelines for our instructors and students is something Wiki Ed staff does — but with input from the Wikipedia editing community. Our materials try to include both an explanation of what a guideline means (something we can write) and why it is important (something we need input from people who feel passionately about the "why"). There is nothing more persuasive to newbies than an experienced editor explaining why following a particular guideline is important to Wikipedians. Wiki Ed functions in collaboration with the Wikipedia editing community and the academic teaching community. While we are experts at teaching with Wikipedia, it is not fair to either group for us to claim to represent why they care about something without asking them for input. Finally, I'd ask you to be more civil in your posts in the future. It's fine to express disagreement and ask for clarification about Wiki Ed's position, but there's no need to disparage other editors (Wiki Ed staff or not) while doing so. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 01:10, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi all, wow this has gotten a bit intense! Let me begin by saying that I am more than willing to listen to any and all recommendations from the community regarding how my class is to be run. Over the years I have received many helpful comments from the community, and others that sound great in theory, but end up being impossible to implement. So again, let me say that I welcome your recommendations, and will be more than happy to discuss them with you. I'm a friendly guy who has been through a lot with this program, having been connected to more than 40 classes. Please do keep this in mind when considering what I have to say, especially when it comes to my ability to recruit and train ambassadors (I helped train some of the first ambassadors back in 2011 btw). @User:Chris troutman, just so you know, I have worked with Nikki at least twice before, and I recruited and trained User:Dendenn. As Jami mentioned, campus ambassador recruitment always happens at the beginning of the semester, and it is always better when ambassadors are on the ground to run labs, etc. Nikki and Deneille both live more than an hour away from UOIT. Iain has now taken the training, been interviewed and trained by me, and is now getting his feet wet. He'll be a great ambassador. We will also be running a Wikipedia workshop for all UOIT faculty here in November, and I'd like Iain to comment on his experiences with the class so far, so involving him early makes sense.

To respond to some of the other questions: @User:Brianhe "I'm still puzzled and concerned. I think that having a whole community of editors and quasi-owned pages that are abiding by completely different standard of conduct from the rest of us is problematic. For instance, there is nothing on their draft pages to indicate that this is their (your) expectation, so it is to be expected that there will be other conflicts with good-faith editors coming along and making corrections to drafts. Then getting frustrated when the editors are not "allowed" to reply to issues on their user pages, which is obviously the standard of conduct for every other Wikipedian."

I appreciate your point. In a perfect world, all students would be expert Wikipedians within the first week or two, follow policy, respond when asked, and not break any rules (all while taking 5 courses, working part or full-time and commuting 10 hours a week). What I'm saying here is that you have to trust that the profs who are running these classes, especially the experienced ones, are doing their best to keep everybody happy. I know the structure I'm imposing seems harsh, but trust me, you wouldn't like the alternative. We've seen the alternative, profs who have no control, engage little and make a HUGE mess in the encyclopedia. Trust me, if you've reviewed some of the problems with previous classes (Jami, if you could add a link to the infamous 1700 student class), you'll know that a lack of structure is way more problematic than what I'm doing. I can appreciate that you would like to comment on student sandboxes, and I'm not going to try and stop you from doing that (I quite welcome it!) From what I recall, I only reverted edits that were stopping me from moving material back to sandboxes. I am not stopping you from posting on talk pages, I am not stopping you from reviewing sandboxes. I wouldn't recommend editing sandboxes, because it will probably make students uncomfortable before they get their grades, and before they've learned about engaging with the community. All I ask, is that you take my experience into consideration here, and trust that I am really doing my best to ensure that all involved are happy. Again, I welcome your suggestions, and echo User:LiAnna (Wiki Ed)'s comments about civility. We're all working hard here. --Jaobar (talk) 04:56, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Ones user page is sort of ones user page. Sometimes before one edits anothers user workspace they should ask permission. If this happened in mainspace yes there would be an issue. If there was copyright issues than sure. Otherwise I think it is fine to let people experiment in their user space without interference if that is what is desired. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:31, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

@User:Brianhe and @User:Chris troutman, haven't heard back from you. Is the matter resolved for now? As I said previously, I will be very happy to discuss any recommendations you may have. @Doc James, great to hear from you! Been a while. I hope that all is well and that our paths cross again soon. --Jaobar (talk) 14:38, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jaobar: I'm not involving myself in this conversation any longer. I appreciate you bringing your class to Wikipedia and your willingness to engage with us on this noticeboard. I have a fundamental disagreement with how Wikipedia's education program has been run, hence my frustration. I hope your course goes well. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:47, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

@Chris troutman: Sorry to hear of your frustration. As I've said, I'm open to your suggestions, and will try to implement them if I can. Some students will be editing soon, and I look forward to continued engagement with the community. Best, --Jaobar (talk) 17:10, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Copy and paste detection bot picking up issues from a class

Article is fine motor skills. Missed a previous issue so it appears our parser still needs work. But is a reminder of how important having automated detection is. Otherwise this article would have more or less ended up on Wikipedia [4] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 02:52, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

They certainly look like class edits, but none of the recent editors appear to be related to the official education program. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:27, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

The account that assigned the sections to people and one of the IPs that edited both point to Hunter College, CUNY, which has a Human Development course running, although none of the editors appear to be on the participant list. I'll ping Jami. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 12:30, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Just an update that I contacted the instructor whose student this might be to a) let her know this happened, b) make sure the student doesn't just re-post it, and c) send her some resources about copyvios and plagiarism to distribute to all the students. I'll update here when I hear back from her about whether this is, in fact, one of her editors. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:10, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I do not see this as the students "fault". Many people are just unaware it seems, that one is not to copy and paste from sources even if one references the source in question. I see two organizations at fault 1) the prof for not supervising the students edits sufficiently / giving them sufficient instruction on copy and pasting 2) us at Wikipedia for not having in place automated tools to pick up these issues across all of Wikipedia Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 18:24, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jmh649: Agreed. I explained to the instructor that students often don't understand how plagiarism works online, and that this is a good teaching opportunity to reinforce that lesson and use this as an example so the class really understands the problem. Thanks, again, for notifying us here. Good to see the bot caught that. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:34, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Any college-level syllabus includes plagiarism warnings, many instructors discuss plagiarism on the first day of class, and it's frequently discussed in orientation. It actually takes an effort to remain unaware of it. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:56, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I think many people simply do not know what the word "plagiarism" or "paraphrasing" means. Maybe presenting it in simple terms such as "read the source, understand the source, put it into your own words, never copy and paste" would get us farther. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 03:06, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

^ This. I think there's two basic kinds of plagiarism, insidious and innocuous (strike this as my meaning is being lost). A lot of student (and volunteer!) edits fall into the latter category. It may be worthwhile to develop a resource for "plagiarism/close paraphrasing on wikipedia" which more clearly expresses our guidance and general guidance, but I'm not sure if that would be duplicating too much effort (as ian notes, nearly every school already has a handbook/guide on plagiarism). Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I get very uncomfortable when anyone says that plagiarism can be "innocuous". Plagiarism can result from naivete, and Wikipedia should understand about how WP:BITE may apply, but Wikipedia should never treat plagiarism or copyright violation as something that doesn't matter. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:12, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

It's simply wrong to call any plagiarism "innocuous." I don't know which university you are affiliated with Adam (Wiki Ed), but at mine the plagiarism policy very clearly makes no such distinction. It makes no difference whether it is (in the policy's words) "accidental or unintentional". I'm concerned that an employee of the WEF should be giving out any other message, which doesn't align with academic standards, let alone Wikipedia's.

This is not to say that it's not worth thinking about motivation etc., and indeed I've repeatedly called for sustained thought on this, specifically in terms of a "plagiarism summit" (which, I've pointed out, would achieve much more besides). If the WEF is up for such a discussion, then that would be marvellous. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:40, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Innocuous is the wrong word, but as you said motivation matters. And I'd say it matters a lot in terms of the effectiveness of training to prevent plagiarism. In terms of outcome it's largely immaterial and Wikipedia's guidance as well as that of basically any university won't distinguish based on claimed or imputed motivation. But we're not really talking about the response to plagiarism. We're talking about ways to set up students for success on this subject. Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:58, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

The result is what matters on wikipedia for cases of plagiarism and close paraphrasing, but when talking about training new editors and students the motivation matters. Stopping insidious plagiarism (for students) is a responsibility that mostly rests with the school. Stopping close paraphrasing that comes from students trying to summarize sources in a way that is new to them (writing a wikipedia article is very different from most college/HS assignments) is something that we can help head off by understanding the motivation and the unique situation and trying to find a resource that clearly and simply expresses what the problem is, how it arises and how to avoid it. Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk)16:27, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

We treat copyright violations very seriously here and the deletion log is full of entire new pages being removed constantly under G12. Most suspected plagiarism edits are copy-paste jobs which are also copyright violations and swiftly dealt with. As far as edits that are not copyright infringements, I think that the majority fall in to two groups: editors that don't know how to cite, and editors that don't understand that having a citation makes their edits better. For most classroom assignments that are using the Wikipedia courses program, it is assumed that the students are not subject matter experts, but researchers, and just like Wikipedia, their instructors are not looking for students to produce original research. I think the solution would be to provide/improve tools/course directions/training/etc to convince the students that adding content without adding citations is undesirable. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:51, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Adam (Wiki Ed) see Wikipedia:Plagiarism and Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. These resources are available to all editors and all editors should adhere to the guidance there. Victoria (tk) 16:12, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I've seen those (and I've probably commented on one of the RfCs). I'm just talking about taking Doc James's suggestion seriously that offering a resource which states thinds plainly can be valuable. I didn't really intend to stir up a nest over this or insinuate that the two pages we have are somehow insufficient. But realistically they're just another set of pages among those that all editors should read and follow and that set gets pretty large pretty quickly. Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk)16:23, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

In my view Wiki Ed should be adding those two pages to their introductory material. As someone who writes here, who teaches at the college level, and who uses WP as a teaching tool (spent an entire class period on WP last week) I strongly disagree that a college assignment differs from WP writing. I've found the best way to teach how not to paraphrase closely is by demonstration and we have plenty of it here to demonstrate. We shouldn't be excusing more. But - WP does differ from regular writing assignments in that here we publish to the world. There's no guarantee problems can be scrubbed so the onus, in my view, is strongly to avoid rather than to excuse. Victoria (tk) 16:40, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I haven't recommended excusing more. I don't think it's valuable to merely re-iterate relevant policies and guidelines for introductory materials, but creating a simpler guide to plagiarism doesn't impact how it is handled on wikipedia or in the classrooms (both of which are out of the hands of Wiki Ed, really). Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:57, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the above, I apologize for derailing the discussion. My point was that I think it's valuable to develop clear and simple training materials explaining the basics of avoiding plagiarism. It's serious academic misconduct, so any participating university will have an academic code regarding plagiarism and wikipedia has strong guidance on it already. If we're going to (and this decision isn't really up to me) create materials talking about this it might be valuable to create something simple and tractable rather than recapitulating what's students have already seen twice on the premise that the third time's the charm. Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:02, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for striking that part and for your clarifications. I think we actually agree much more than it initially appeared. And also, please let me tout WP:ASSIGN#Plagiarism and copyright infringement. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:49, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: sourabhtk37

Sourabhtk37 (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   Because i owe something to people who helped me in completing my homework to finding information about an interesting thing that i just came across.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   I live in India. I havent yet decided where to work.

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   I am a student currently pursuing bachelors of technology in computer science enggineering.

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)

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Sourabhtk37 (talk) 17:02, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Judging the fact that you have virtually no experience prior to this, I am going to say not now. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 22:36, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Help getting "instructor" user rights

Hello,

I would like to prepare a course page for an assignment that I am trying to set up. However, whenever I go to Wikipedia:Training/For educators/Setting up your course 2 and proceed through the pages, I get to the button that says "start building my course page" and a pop up come up that does not respond, so I can not go further. I have tried using both safari and firefox. How do I get instructor rights so I can get started? I have tried to identify a course ambassador, but so far I have not had any responses, although it has not been long since I left messages on several talk pages. Thanks for your help.Dbzam (talk) 16:10, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Dbzam: Thank you for posting about the problem! It looks like that popup tool has broken; I'm having the same problem you describe. I'll try to fix it. In the meantime, I've set up the next step for you, so you can build your course page. Just go here to get started: User:Dbzam/course wizard.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:20, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

The popup should be working properly again now.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:03, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Sage!Dbzam (talk) 17:15, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Granting 'course coordinator' user right

Hi, all. I'm trying to walk our new program manager, Helaine through the course pages and education extension, and I've just realized she still needs the 'Course Coordinator' user right so she can help instructors create them. Can an administrator please grant her that user right? Thanks so much! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:42, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

 Done — xaosflux ^Talk 18:20, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Thank you! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:10, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you @Xaosflux: and @Jami (Wiki Ed): Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:57, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Deborah Zamble

Institution

University of Toronto

Course title and description

CHM437S: Bioinorganic chemistry

CHM437S is a lecture-based course that will explore the fundamental principles of bioinorganic chemistry and examine how they are applied in specific examples from our world. We will touch on many of the inorganic elements that are used in biology, but our focus is on the transition metals. Topics covered include the occurrence, distribution, and roles of the essential inorganic elements in nature; the structure and function of naturally occurring ligands; physical methods used to study bioinorganic biomolecules; uptake, regulation, and insertion into metalloproteins; and the discussion of examples including both redox and non-redox metalloenzymes, electron transfer proteins and energy-coupled processes, metallodrugs, etc.

This is a senior undergraduate course, with several junior graduate students enrolled. The enrolment is typically 15-20 students.

In the past, students have picked a topic in bioinorganic chemistry and prepared a presentation for the class about the topic. This year, I am going to add on a wikipedia component, where they translate the general information that they have learned into a wikipedia page.

Number of students

15-20

Start and end dates

The class starts January 5, 2015 and ends May 1, 2015.

Campus ambassador

I am looking for a campus ambassador for support.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Dbzam (talk) 17:14, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Dbzam I've added the permission for you, please post here if you need any specific help. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:47, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Xaosflux.Dbzam (talk) 20:55, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

CaroleHenson Ambassador Request

CaroleHenson

CaroleHenson (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I would like to be an online ambassador for classes like Women, Art, and Culture, because this is an area that I've focused on Wikipedia. I have written or expanded articles about Women artistsand other Visual arts articles, like those on Vincent van Gogh and stained glass artists. I like to assist people in making better articles.

2. In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.

   Partially answered above, I have written and edited articles about arts and artists. I have also written and edited articles about Southwestern US prehistory and history. Activities that don't show up on my list of articles, include patrolling for new pages using AWB and New pages feed, being an Adopter in the Adopt-a-user program, and reviewing nominated Good articles.

3. Please indicate a few articles to which you have made significant content contributions. (e.g. DYK, GA, FA, major revisions/expansions/copyedits).

   Grandma Moses, Ethel Sands, Eleanor Norcross, Susanna Paine, Kate Millett, Olive Trees (Van Gogh series), Langlois Bridge at Arles (Van Gogh series)

4. How have you been involved with welcoming and helping new users on Wikipedia?

   I have welcomed many dozens of new users, generally when I see users with red links for their talk page on my watchlist - or new users that appear on the NewPagesFeed or on the AWB new articles list.

5. What do you see as the most important ways we could welcome newcomers or help new users become active contributors?

   To post a welcome message and teahouse invite, determine what projects that individuals might be most interested in, and encourage them in their article writing/editing. If I see a person that is interested in articles about women artists, I invite them to that project.

6. Have you had major conflicts with other editors? Blocks or bans? Involvement in arbitration? Feel free to offer context, if necessary.

   I have never had blocks or bans. There have been conflicts that have popped up occasionally, but nothing that I can think of in a year or in years. I am an A-type person, and sometimes have needed to realize that I've needed to check my emotions when responding... for instance, if I realize that I am feeling emotions then I need to take a break and come back when my responses come from a clear-headed approach. Often I find that my response is very different than I would have initially posted - and am much likely to extend an olive branch in an encouraging tone. I seem to get most upset when people go directly into personal attacks of me or someone else, I love civility and am at my best when I gently encourage / model it.

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?

   Yes, I write as much or more than I would be writing for a full-time job and can absolutely commit to two hours per week or more.

8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?

   By checking their prose to cited source, reading the article to see if tone changes throughout the article, and reading for content that is non-encyclopedic tone that might come from a blog, personal site, or company site. One tool I use is the duplicate checker, which is pretty effective for checking web pages.

9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?

   Show an example of the text in the article - compared to the text from the source - and provide the links, such as close paraphrasing and Copyvio. Then, offer to assist, if needed, perhaps rewording one sentence as an example. ... Reworded to clarify: Identify an example of a copyright violation by comparing the text from the article to the source, because sometimes it's not clear how closely paraphrased or copied content is until it's seen side-by-side. Provide helpful links, such as close paraphrasing and Copyvio. Then, offer to assist, if needed, perhaps rewording one sentence as an example.

10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.

    A copyright violation can be a direct copy of material that is not in the public domain - or minimal paraphrasing so that the author's style, word use, and word order are easily discerned.

11. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

    I am a detail-oriented person who loves to write, edit, and coach.

CaroleHenson (talk) 20:08, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.) - I will save what I've written to check in with a couple of people before I post their names.

• Endorse: The first of answer #9 is little bit unclear to me, but other questions have been answered wonderfully. This editor is also doing fine work herea. --Tito☸Dutta 21:32, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
• Endorse 100%. I've been working with this author on GA reviews (and reviewed one of their articles for GA). They're patient, understanding and diligent. Protonk (talk) 23:32, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, @Protonk and Titodutta:, that was very nice! I reworded item #9 to be a little clearer.--CaroleHenson (talk) 00:22, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• Endorse: Not strictly needed but I was asked earlier and have only just seen it. CaroleHenson is an excellent contributor and has exactly the type of temperament that would make her an excellent ambassador. I was quite heavily involved with guiding her when she started out, just as all newbies need some guidance, but nowadays I merely find myself patting her on the back for yet another good job done. She knows her stuff and she knows how to use it. - Sitush (talk) 13:49, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Next steps

• I'm not sure of the timing of the next steps - approve/not approve, training, etc. What happens next? Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 19:04, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Normally one of these people will come along and action this. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:06, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 01:40, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Pinging the usual bunch: @OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: — xaosflux ^Talk 23:42, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Granted online ambassador. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 23:53, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Student Organizations at College

Hey all - while the education program is targeted towards class editing, I was wondering if anyone is aware of any college student organizations oriented around Wikipedia editing (i.e. student-run organizations that promote collaboration and/or training new editors)? Doesn't necessarily have to be associated with the Wikipedia Education Program. The reason I ask is that I'm interested in possibly finding editors (and to-be editors) at my campus to collaborate with, and possibly create a student organization if there happens to be interest (I'd be surprised if I can pull this off, but at a school with 60,000 students I'm hopeful). Would be great to see if anything similar has been done before at other schools. Thanks! ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 05:24, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Mount Sinai College of Medicine is doing this. User:Bluerasberry is assisting. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 08:22, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

@SuperHamster: See outreachwiki:Wikipedian Student Organizations; there had been some efforts to organize a few years ago, but they've mostly died out now. I do still think this idea has a lot of promise, and it's something I'd like to see Wiki Ed pursue as a strategy in the future (but, as I said below, we're more focused on capacity-building right now). That being said, I'd love to hear how you go about it and what you discover if you do decide to pursue it! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:08, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jmh649: @LiAnna (Wiki Ed): Nice, thanks for the info! It's nice to see a few other efforts like this. This is all preliminary thinking, but assuming I can get something started, would it be appropriate to create a clubhouse page, seeing that the project is inactive? I might prefer to create a page on Wikipedia (such was done for Wikipedia:Cambridge University Wikipedia Society) and then create a redirect from the Clubhouse page. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 17:58, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

SuperHamster There is not really a good choice to make here, as all options have problems. I opted for a regular course page for the class with which I am doing this. If you like, email me and we can talk by voice about the pros and cons of the options and why one might choose one over the other. I like the club model also. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:03, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Will do, thanks Lane. Would love to hear your thoughts and experiences. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 18:18, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Yet another apparent stealth class

A professor at University of Michigan appears to have sent his students to Wikipedia. Hopefully, he'll be on-board soon.

On a related note, at what point does this project begin blanketing colleges with the message that we have an outreach program and ought to be contacted? I'm getting ready to spam the University of California system as soon as I get my act together. It might be time to look at getting articles into campus papers or college websites for the sake of awareness. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:24, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I'd suggest The Chronicle of Higher Education. I submitted one there about five years ago and they were interested but in the end decided not to run it. Anything submitted directly from Wiki Ed might get picked up. But it will draw criticism too. My sense is that much of the academic community is still not impressed with this place. fwiw. Victoria (tk) 00:31, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

• Blasting the UC system as a whole is harder than you would expect - UCOP won't send individual faculty blasts to all campuses about stuff like this. Even Berkeley, which has sent full faculty blasts about the USEP, has had a number of off the radar classes. Blasting US colleges as a whole would need a couple fulltime staff at least dedicated to handlingjust that. (Sorry for my recent absence; very, very significant health issues.) Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:00, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
• Best route is going to be contacting a campus's "educational innovations" or dept of teaching & learning for dissemination. Their equivalent of a faculty senate might be another avenue. Otherwise, realistically, profs don't read their email. Such a campaign would be a success if it even manages to get as far as dept heads for a brief faculty meeting mention. czar ♔ 02:58, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
• Talk to the universities' educational technologists. I've said this before, but this is somewhere the WEF could indeed be useful; its focus to date has been almost entirely on faculty (and to some extent on librarians), but the people on campus who are paid to support and proselytise for novel uses of technology in classes are the technologists. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:22, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
• Speaking for Wiki Ed here: While we are absolutely happy to have "stealth" classes who are already using Wikipedia sent our way, we also don't want to do a massive blast to all universities announcing our presence quite yet. Here's why: I don't think we have the capacity to support the number of classes that would result from such outreach. At the end of the day, Wiki Ed's goal is to improve Wikipedia's content. Our current support systems couldn't handle a massive influx of new student editors that would come from a nationwide blast announcing Wiki Ed's programs, and the likely outcome would be that many of the students would not be adding content that improved Wikipedia. Our current goal is to improve those support systems so that in the future, we could support more classes.

One example of how we're improving support systems is the work Sage has been doing with the Assignment Design Wizard. We know from working with more than 500 classes that good assignment design is key to providing student editors with a great learning experience and having their content improve Wikipedia. Currently, Jami, Helaine, or one of our volunteers spends a significant amount of time explaining assignment design to every new instructor who joins our program, ensuring the instructor isn't asking students to, say, make an argument in their Wikipedia articles. This one-on-one discussion with each new instructor is a bottleneck to increasing the number of classes, and so we're creating a technical solution to this bottleneck. Once we've improved these support systems to the extent that we believe we can support significantly larger numbers of classes while still maintaining the quality of work student editors are adding to Wikipedia, we'll definitely be open to doing nationwide (US and Canada) outreach.

As Czar and Jbmurray mentioned teaching and learning centers and educational technologists, I will say that these are absolutely our targets for the current growth we're doing. Jami's role as Educational Partnerships Manager is to establish partnerships with universities' teaching support staff (what this role is called and where it is housed is different across different universities, hence the "teaching and learning center staff"/"librarians"/"educational technologists" references) to scale the program at specific universities, as well as through academic association partnerships. Training staff on campus who support instructors with incorporating technology into their teaching is something we've been doing since 2010 on a small scale, and one of Jami's current goals is working with the university staff we already have as program participants to determine what we can do to grow the program at their universities.

I'm happy to answer any questions about our strategy if anyone has them. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:02, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

It was brought to my attention that there's a stealth class at UC Irvine and since that's in SoCal it's my primary concern. I only want faculty to know this program exists and that they should use it. I doubt seriously that my outreach would result in the flood WEF readily admits it can't handle. By the way, the lack of can-do attitude throughout Wikipedia is troubling to me. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:49, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Taweetham Limpanuparb

Institution

Mahidol Univeristy

Course title and description

ICCH 444 Environmental Chemistry

Introduction to chemical aspects of problems and solution in the environment; field trips and practical exercises included.

This is a senior undergraduate course, with several junior graduate students enrolled.

I have learnt about this Education program at Wikimania 2014 in London. Anna Koval (@AKoval (WMF) and Msannakoval:) came to Thailand, discussed further details of the program with me at Mahidol University (2014-10-20) and agreed to help. Details of the project can be found on Wikimedia Outreach.

Number of students

8

Start and end dates

15 September 2014 - 9 December 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Taweetham (talk) 15:47, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

 Verified I have carefully considered this proposal and Taweetham's pilot is one that I endorse. Taweetham is a tireless advocate of and contributor to the Wikimedia movement in Thailand. As a former Admin and CheckUser on Thai Wikipedia, he frequently handled what were clearly contributions from unsupported students for classroom assignments (tens of brand new users all editing on the same topic and doing so not in accordance with project policies). He understands the harm that can be done. Taweetham and I had a long and frank discussion about the challenges of international students working on English Wikipedia, and I asked all the tough questions that you would have asked. He is aware of the challenges and that's why this is such a small and manageable pilot project. My hope is that his students will also begin to contribute in their native languages, too. But that can't happen if they're not exposed and encouraged and instructed, which they will be. I have agreed to be an online ambassador, to help Taweetham monitor his students' contributions. Please don't hesitate to contact me for more information or clarification. I hope his request will meet with your approval. Yours sincerely, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 23:26, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

 Done per Akoval's endorsement. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:40, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Xaosflux. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 02:38, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Request for Course coordinator rights: Sara Mörtsell (WMSE) (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Name

• Sara Mörtsell

Organisation

• Wikimedia Sweden

Rationale

• I have this user right on Swedish Wikipedia, and since I'm also working with university professors instructing mainly in English, it would be great to also be able to help them out on English Wikipedia as well.
  • This normally requires endorsement by existing staff. Do you actually plan on coordinating instructors and ambassadors here on enwiki, or do you just need online volunteer access? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:37, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
    • Since getting course pages set up for new professors requires +CC and Sara is staff at a movement affiliate, I don't see any problem with her having the right, and will probably grant it to her soonish unless someone points out a problem with the idea. If we want to, we can eventually make a policy dealing with handing out +CC, but until then "movement staff of a movement entity with an active education program" sounds reasonable to me. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:40, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
      • Sounds fine to me, I just help out as a enwiki admin here so didn't want to make the assumption. I would like to see on epcoords have an endorsement from at least ONE existing epcoord though for tracking. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:17, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: SuperHamster

SuperHamster (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   As a current undergraduate student and Wikipedia editor, I'd love to get involved with helping fellow students becoming accommodated to the wiki. A big chunk of my time on Wikipedia is spent helping new editors through the help desk, Teahouse, and OTRS, and I'd love to expand on that by offering assistance at my university. My school currently has a few courses involved with the education program (which I expand on below), and with a good general knowledge of editing Wikipedia (formatting, article quality, point of view, copyright, etc.) I believe I can be of help.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   I'm currently attending the Ohio State University in Columbus as a sophomore undergrad. OSU's education programs with Wikipedia are slowly growing: at the moment, we have two courses running, in addition to a few other professors who are including Wikipedia into their course materials separate from the Education Program. We currently appear to have a lack of campus ambassadors, and the programs we have are new and include some first-time instructors. I'd love to join the ambassador program and reach out as a potential resource for these instructors and students.

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   As stated above, I'm currently attending the Ohio State University in Columbus as a sophomore undergrad, majoring in Computer Science and Engineering.

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   I primarily edit the English Wikipedia, which I detail a bit more on userpage. My second home is the Commons, where I've uploaded pictures and occasionally deal with licensing and copyvios. On the backend, I'm also a member of the Wikimedia OTRS team, answering emails sent to the Foundation.

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I think I just about covered everything! Looking forward to expanding OSU's integration with Wikipedia.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 20:32, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

• Seems to me to be an excellent candidate for this position. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:22, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
• Looks like an experienced editor to me. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:01, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
• I like to see initiative. Way to go, Ohio. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:19, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
  • What a nice song. "I went back to Ohio" was his first mistake... I kid, I love my state ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 05:09, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
    • To editor Helaine (Wiki Ed): Unless you have concerns, this candidate is ready to be a campus ambassador. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:02, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
• @SuperHamster: There seems to be community consensus about this, so I went ahead and granted you campus volunteer rights. Please email me so I can put you in touch with the professor of the evolution course. Thank you for your help! Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:10, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Thanks @Helaine (Wiki Ed): I did already get in touch with the course instructor at his talk page, but let me know if there's anything else you wished to discuss! Thank you. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 03:24, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
    • @SuperHamster: If you don't mind, send me a quick email so we can discuss your role in this course a little further. thanks.Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:25, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
      •  Done ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 22:41, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Stacie Widdifield

Institution

University of Arizona

Course title and description

ARH 480/580 Topics in Art History: Art History for the 21st Century. Small, project-based seminar. Two projects: develop Wikipedia page and research "digital art history" and reshape an existing research paper into an ideal digital art history project.

Number of students

10 undergraduates and 5 graduates

Start and end dates

January 14-May 14, 2015 Staciemap (talk) 19:32, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Staciemap (talk) 19:32, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

@Staciemap: Thank you for filling out your course draft page. I have granted you course instructor rights. I will go ahead and create your course page. I will be following up with more information about Wiki Ed's resources. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:31, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Mel Stanfill

Institution

University of Illinois

Course title and description

Queer Lives, Queer Politics is a sophomore-level course serving as an introduction to Queer Studies. Wikipedia fits into the course because it focuses on the ways certain people, communities, and cultural objects take action on the world (are political).

Number of students

There are 27 students, but they are working in groups and may assign a single person to be Editor for the group, so minimum 6.

Start and end dates

August 25-December 9

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Mstanfill (talk) 23:23, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

@Mstanfill: I granted you course instructor rights, and I will go ahead and create your course page as well. I will be following up with more information about the Wiki Education Program. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:24, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

TheTrabiMechanic Campus Ambassador UK request

TheTrabiMechanic (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   Wikipedia gives tutors and students a chance to work out in the world rather than students submitting essays to one person who probably has 15 minutes to spend thinking about it.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   UCL, London - Raya Sharbain is another Campus Ambassador there.

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   E-Learning Facilitator, which means I work strategically with academic departments (particularly in the arts, humanities, social & historical sciences, languages and laws). I have a doctorate in web-based health promotion for high blood pressure.

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   Fairly early days for me but I've been meaning to get involved for a long time. Jointly organised a translatathon (with Roberta Wedge from WMUK and a translation academic at UCL, Rocio Banos Pinero) to take place on 18th Nov 2014; attended first UK Campus Ambassadors meeting at UCL; attended my first London Wikimedia Meetup in Sep 2014; participated in my first editathon - Women in Classics in Sep 2014; have been attempting to organise a Global Women's Health editathon (to precede the translatathon) but not quite managed that yet... At time of writing, following UCL's MSIN1003 Information World with interest, which I plan to evaluate with Raya, and actively advocating for academic colleagues to experiment along similar lines. Attending EduWiki 2014 this week in Edinburgh.

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   Nothing and everything comes to mind.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --TrabiMechanic 00:30, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Escape from L.A.

To editor Kevin Gorman: I am leaving Los Angeles for good, Saturday. I appreciate the opportunity the Education Program and Bluerasberry had afforded me. I will continue supporting my three courses online through the rest of the semester. I encourage the WEF and Los Angeles Wikipedians in particular to support Tobyhigbie, Benkarney, and Nafpaktitism all at UCLA as well as Urbanature at USC. When I'm able to serve as campus ambassador again I'll post here. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:10, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Chris troutman Good luck in your travels. I put those people on my watchlist. Message me if you ever want to chat by voice or video and thanks for what you have done. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:32, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

A page apparently related to an educational project landed up at AFC

Please help to find where Draft:JMS 210: Case Study Project - TED Talks should actually be located. It seems to be part of an educational project's "information/instructions for participants" page. It can't be an actual article draft as we already have a well developed article about TED Talks. (I have removed the AFC submission templates from the page to get it out of the reviewing process.) Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:37, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Talk note left for page creator. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:29, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Assignment Design Wizard: please test!

Wiki Education Foundation has been working on a new tool to help instructors design good assignments, and I'm happy to report that the prototype is ready for testing. The basic idea is for this tool to replace parts of the current process of setting up a course page (ie, the {{course page wizard}} template). This new Assignment Design Wizard is intended both to explain best practices for good Wikipedia assignments and to let an instructor make choices about each of the elements of a typical assignment to customize it to their own needs. At the end, the wizard posts a timeline to userspace, which an instructor can then edit further if they want to.

There are a few things that are still placeholders, but it's very close to the "1.0" version.

The output is mostly controlled by a bunch of template (which I'll document soon) so that we can continually refine the details. I'm really interested in feedback on the Wizard itself: whether it makes sense, what you find confusing or buggy about it, and whether the explanatory text is accurate and complete.

Any feedback will be appreciated, but if you want to be extra helpful, this would be perfect:

1. Put yourself into the mindset of a college professor--a reader of Wikipedia but not an experienced editor--who is interested in running their first Wikipedia classroom assignment.
2. Go through the assignment design wizard, and think through each step from that professor's perspective. Take notes about any interface problems you encounter along the way.
3. At the end, look through the assignment plan that gets posted to your userspace.
4. Leave me a message about any suggestions you have for improving the content of the wizard, the assignment plan that it generated, and any interface problems you found.

Launch the Assignment Design Wizard

--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:26, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Feedback from Tryptofish

This is just a quick, preliminary try. I clicked the button and then tried to see what would happen if I went to the next page without filling in the information on the first page. On my display, there's a black box with white letters at the top right that says "Wiki Edu" with the rest of it cut off. Scrolling around and having the display on the right change when I move the cursor over the left side was a little confusing. I could not get to the third page by clicking on "next" or on the series of circles. Perhaps all of that is because I was (intentionally) non-compliant with the request for information on the first page, but I imagine many intended users may want to look it over before providing information. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:18, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Tryptofish: Thanks much. What size of screen were you using, and what browser? We still have a bit of work to make it go more smoothly for smaller displays, and validation for the first step before you move on to the second should also be done soon.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:00, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

19 inch, Firefox 33.0.2. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:45, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Tryptofish: Do you know the resolution?--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:46, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

1024 x 768. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:52, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. This should work after the layout fixes that are in progress.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:02, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I've now gone back and run the Wizard more carefully and fully. With the fixes that have been made since my earlier comment, the display is just fine, and I had no difficulties with it. My fake course page is at User:Tryptofish/Neuroscience. Overall, my opinion is very positive, and my concerns are mostly quibbles. Here are my further suggestions:

1. I found that, once I completed the process, and I wanted to go back to the Wizard, I had to manually re-enter all of my course information. It would be nice if there were some sort of "log back in" capability, going back to the same class.
2. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to click on the left side of the screen in order to navigate. It would be helpful to have a quick instruction about that at the beginning.
3. Page 1: "They draft their articles..." It makes it sound like students should start new pages, instead of improving existing ones. Maybe something like "They draft their articles (or their additions to existing articles)...".
4. Page 1: "Students who do great work may even have their articles featured on Wikipedia's main page." I realize that this is a reference to DYK, but it sounds like FA. I think that the use of the word "featured" and the way the sentence is written makes it sound like Today's Featured Article, which is what most users, including instructors, will see first when they look at the main page. Perhaps you could reword it, but it might be better just to delete that sentence.
5. "Pros and cons to sandboxes" and "Pros and cons to editing live": I'd change "to" to "of". (It's a trivial point, but you are talking to professors!)
6. "About peer feedback": This is something where regular editors often get annoyed with students, when the students fill up article talk pages with vapid praise of one another. Either it should be on a course page instead of the article talk pages, or there should be some language here about teaching students to use critical thinking, and not just to praise one another.
7. "About grading": In the section about knowing students' usernames, I'd also like a sentence about requiring students to indicate on the talk pages of their articles that there is a class assignment, linking to the class page (or Template:Educational assignment). Other editors need to know that.

Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 23:39, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Feedback from xaosflux

• Technical Feedback

1. Not sure why, but it took multiple attempts before the page would work, complaining about unified account issues.

   "Application Connection Error / To use Connected Apps on this site, you must have an account across all projects. When you have an account on all projects, you can try to connect "wikiedu.org Assignment Design Wizard" again. / Unified login needed, E008 / Return to Main Page."

xaosflux: I believe this is because the account you were using had never visited another project beyond en.wiki while logged in, so it was not a global SUL account yet. I *think* this shouldn't be an issue in the near future, but in the meantime I plan to get around it by adding a step of visiting another wiki before users launch the wizard.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:00, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

1. Once connected, nothing happened. Was due to high security settings on browser for these issues:
   • Unexpected scripts being executed from a third party web site (wikiedu.org)
   • Encryption state change, wikiedu.org
     • Context change from SSL to non-SSL for wikiedu.org
     • Note: SSL version of wikiedu.org has an invalid SSL certificate belonging to *.asmallorange.com

Good to note. For now, we'll probably not try to get proper https working, but it's on the longer-term todo list.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:00, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

• Content Feedback

1. The user interface for Research and write an article has a required selection box, however the selector indicator is box shading and if clicked multiple times it is easy to get lost as to the current state; suggest changing this to a CHECK/unchecked toggle instead of shading
2. Here is the page that got created User:Xaosflux_ep/ABC_123
   1. Minor error in the top, looks like a missing line break between the last screen text and the section header marker

      Yep. There are actually no line breaks being put in at all at this point, but intention is to have the output spaced in a way that makes it as readable as possible, so something more like this (with the substitutions in effect). This is high the priority list to fix.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:00, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

There you go; if there is a chance to move the technical integration away from Wordpress (?) it may resolve many of the those issues. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:22, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not integrated with WordPress; presently we have wizard.wikiedu.org on its own (virtual server), so the only connect is that it's on a subdomain of wikiedu.org (which has WordPress as its main service).--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:00, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

A bunch of fixes are in

Thanks again, Tryptofish and xaosflux. The latest build has a big swath of fixes. It should be usable on a 1024x768 screen now, the validation is more complete so that you can't continue until you've entered the required details or made a selection where relevant, and the toggles are restyled so that it should be more clear when whether you've selected a given option or not. I've done user testing with a new instructor, with several more tests lined up soon, and my focus for the next couple of weeks will be to refine the text and make sure it integrates well with Wikipedia:Training/For educators.

More feedback from anyone who cares to take it for a spin will be much appreciated!--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:07, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Feedback from AmandaRR123

Technically speaking, I had a really smooth experience! Using Chrome, I didn't see any bugs. Just a few comments:

• I wonder if there are plans to have more assignment choices on the first screen. I realize this is a larger philosophical discussion that you've all worked on for some time -- what types of assignments are most beneficial to the classroom and the Wikipedia community -- but I noticed that the tool, by reading "assignment type selection" and "available assignments", seems to indicate some flexibility in assignment type while right now only offering one option. This may still be under development.
  • AmandaRR123: Yep, still under development.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:03, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
• When I input grading options, I assigned them in a point system, but the end result gave the grade in percentages. This led to a slightly strange-looking result where rather than a certain assignment being worth 1 point, it was worth 1% of the grade. (Granted, assigning something only 1 point was a little silly.)
  • Whoops! This got changed at the last minute to points, but it is supposed to be % in the interface. (At some point we'll probably have an option to switch between points and %.)--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:03, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
• I really like that the end course page is editable. I think course instructors will often want to add to the weekly resources or discussion topics, and this makes that relatively easy.

Here is the test course, for reference -- as far as I could tell, everything seemed to work well. AmandaRR123 (talk) 21:46, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks much!--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:03, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Feedback from Lixxx235

My feedback exactly seconds AmandaRR123; same stuff. No bugs found, used Chrome for iPad and I had the same issue with the points/percentages. My testing course page is at User:Lixxx235/Tester123. Cheers, Thanks, L235-Talk Ping when replying 22:14, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Bd1896 (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Bethany Holmstrom, PhD. Assistant Professor of English.

Institution

LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

Course title and description

ENG 295 / World Literatures in English. In our section of the major's capstone class, we will explore postcolonial adaptations of ancient Greek tragedies. We will create a collaboratively written Wikipedia entry on one of these postcolonial plays for our final class project. We will be working with the Theatre WikiProject and will consult with the campus ambassador Ann Matsuuchi. Class blog: http://worldlitlagcc.wordpress.com/

Number of students

12

Start and end dates

The project starts November 3rd and ends December 15, 2014.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Bd1896 (talk) 20:48, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

@BD1896: I have granted you course instructor rights, and I will go ahead and create your course page. I will follow up with more information about Wiki Ed's resources. Thank you. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:54, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

@Helaine (Wiki Ed): Thanks so much! Bd1896 (talk) 14:39, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

@Bd1896: I emailed you at your gmail account, but if you did not get this, please email me so I can follow up with more info about Wiki Ed's resources. Thanks! Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:01, 4 November 2014 (UTC)  

Wiki Ed giving out instructor user rights

I wanted to bring Bluerasberry's comment to a larger audience, so posting here. From Wiki Ed's perspective, we've changed the onboarding process so that instructors create their course page drafts before posting to the noticeboard, and a link to that draft is included in the post here. We reach out and provide feedback and guidance about whether their plans are a good fit for Wikipedia or need some work. By granting the user right, we take responsibility for supporting the instructor. Hope this helps clarify our position! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:01, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: msitar

Msitar (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   As a librarian, I collaborate with faculty to create information literacy assignments that promote critical thinking and engagement with the research process. As more and more faculty express an interest in assignments that include writing for Wikipedia, I'd like to be able to advertise my services with the Ambassador designation.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   Ithaca, NY at Cornell University

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   BA, English, DePaul University, MS in Information Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin, 10 years as an Instruction and Outreach Librarian at the University of Texas. I'm currently Director of Research and Learning Services at Olin and Uris Libraries at Cornell.

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   I hosted an edit-a-thon last year at the University of Texas, have taught a workshop on editing Wikipedia at Cornell, and I'm collaborating with two faculty members now on course assignments. I contribute occasionally in the course of my use of Wikipedia as a librarian.

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   My career as a librarian as been focused on instruction and information literacy. I've spent years teaching undergraduates how to use Wikipedia effectively in their research and I welcome the opportunity to teach the campus community how to effectively contribute to Wikipedia.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Msitar (talk) 20:40, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Support --a big help for a major school. Rjensen (talk) 10:33, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Still hoping for approval of this campus ambassador application. I've tried following up in a variety of ways. If anyone can help me, I'd really appreciate it. @OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: Msitar (talk) 20:29, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

• Support I just reviewed this person's edit history. They know the sandbox, have added content to Wikipedia articles, have formatted citations and added those to Wikipedia articles, have joined a WikiProject, and in the past they created a meetup page. This is more experience than is typical for many applicants for the userright so I would support this person becoming a campus ambassador. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:13, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
• Ktr101 New York is kind of your region too. Could you review this person? Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:12, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Yeah, they look good, so I'm going to give them the rights right now. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 16:48, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Remove blank submissions on sight

Unless anyone has any objections and has spoken to this user before, I'm willing to remove this submission, as there is no information given that tells us anything more than that it is an English class. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 16:04, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Ktr101 I just removed a blank submission which was here. In the future feel free to remove these kinds of submissions on sight. If it seems worthwhile, message the submitter on their talk page and ask them to complete the form again when they are ready. This particular user had been on Wikipedia for an hour and there is no information available about them, and historically, these kinds of submissions have not responded to outreach. If anyone has an idea for a better process than deleting blank submissions then share it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:11, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Gratitude/WikiLove as part of syllabus and course design

Just wanted to share an interesting additional assignment that User:Reagle gave students this semester on expressing gratitude; he's written it up here and talked about how he thought it was a really good addition to the regular course template. I think the additional focus on gratitude is particularly interesting from the community-joining and community-building aspect. AmandaRR123 (talk) 22:24, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the note AmandaRR123 -- interesting idea! -Pete (talk) 00:17, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Redliz11 (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Elizabeth Price

Institution

Murray State University

Course title and description

INF 250 Advanced Information Gathering: Resources and Strategies (3 credits). Advanced information gathering techniques to teach students to report, gather, process, and transform information. The course will involve seeking sources in libraries, public records, books, magazines, journals, corporate reports, online databases, personal interviews, and internet resources. Wikipedia will be used as their final project and will be an integral component of the course as we talk about how modern knowledge is shaped and documented.

Number of students

10

Start and end dates

January 12, 2014-May 8, 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Redliz11 (talk) 23:35, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

@Redliz11: I will go ahead and grant you course instructor rights and create your course page. Based on your course draft, it seems that you used our resources to create it. It looks very thorough, but I will be following up with info about other ways Wiki Ed can help with your Wikipedia assignment. Look out for an email from me. Thanks! Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:05, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Frances Di Lauro (course page draft)

Name

Frances Di Lauro

Institution

The University of Sydney

Course title and description

WRIT1001 Academic Writing - Essays, is a first year undergraduate course. Students in this course learn to consider writing as a process, to brainstorm for ideas, to research to find support or backing for their thoughts and knowledge, and to write about it. They continue with structuring and arranging information, proofreading, editing and refining the work. At most of those junctures, students can demonstrate what they have learnt in Wikipedia articles.

Number of students

In Summer School (December 2014) there will be around 40 students in the class.

Start and end dates

The class runs from 1-18 December, 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Frances Di Lauro 19:53, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

• Support This request is from Fcia0423. I looked at their edit history and saw that they created an article then merged it with another one. This to me is supporting evidence of some experience with content creation and article housekeeping. I would support this person being a campus ambassador. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:08, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Education Program:CUNY, LaGuardia Community College/ENG 295: WORLD LITERATURES IN ENGLISH (Fall 2014)

Is there a reason why this course is shouting? Stuartyeates (talk) 08:44, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't think there's a way to move or rename a course page without deleting it and recreate it from scratch. To be honest, I don't find that to be too much issue and wouldn't bother a lot of people. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:48, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

David Runneals

Institution

Northwest Missouri State University

Course title and description

SOSC 36302 Principles of Humanitarian Relief An examination of the principles, practitioners, and practices of humanitarianism since 1863 with special emphasis on the United States. This course provides students with historical, theoretical, and practical understanding of humanitarianism in the modern world.

We are planning on utilizing wikipedia to be a place for information and background data for the students to reference on the fictional towns and organizations that we include. An example of pages we're thinking of creating is one on the fictional country of Atlantica: http://northwestccr.wix.com/atlantica#!demographics/coju

Number of students

5 students will be creating/modifying content each fall/spring, and there will be ~30 that will be taking the class each spring utilizing the course page for information.

Start and end dates

This will be an ongoing class that is designed by students (TAs) each fall, and will be referenced by students each spring.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Runneals (talk) 20:21, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

@Runneals: Thanks for reaching out on the Education Notice Board. Before I go ahead with this, I was wondering if we could be in touch about your course. I'd like to have some more information before proceeding. Please email me so we can speak further. Thanks! Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:36, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Adding more than one instructor to Course Page

@Helaine (Wiki Ed): Is there a way to add more than one instructor to a course page? I am working on setting up a page for a course I am teaching in the Spring with Instructor SarahEMC2. She is teaching 2 sections and I am teaching one but we would like everything to be managed from one course page. Thanks for your help! Matthewvetter (talk) 20:40, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

@Matthewvetter: If you have course instructor rights (which you do), you should be able to add her to the course page as another instructor. If you have any trouble with this, let me know. Also, if you can send along to me the info for your spring course, that would be great! Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:38, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Reviewers

Today on my watchlist, I was notified that a user had added themselves as a reviewer for the article Economic liberalisation in India. After certain looking up, I came to know that the user, User:Rishabh K Pali has zero edits prior to this. While I have not checked global contribs, I have a question. Is there a minimum criteria in order for one to enable themselves as a reviewer? --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 11:27, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't think there is a technical control related to this, but even odder is the way these logs are being stored; a bit hard to search in the global logs. That is part of course Education Program:Manhattanville College/Economics of Developing Countries (Fall 2014); as far as I can tell, being a 'reviewer' appears to be more of an assignment and doesn't actually do anything--any WikiEd folks have more info on this? — xaosflux ^Talk 12:18, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Xaosflux is correct. Adding oneself as a reviewer is essentially just a way to keep track of which users volunteer to review the work of student editors on a given article, after they've done that work. Usually it's others from the same class who sign up as reviewers, and then they give suggestions on the talk page after the first round of editing. But anyone may sign up as a reviewer on a course page. The logs show up in the history of the article (just as they do when a user is assigned the article to edit), so that people who watch that article get an indication that student editors are planning to work on it. (The logs from the whole system are a bit hard to search. Better than nothing, though.)--ragesoss (talk) 21:12, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

I encouraged students in this class to review each other's work. New Wikipedians should poke themselves into other people's business as soon as possible. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:19, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Richard Buchholz

Institution

University of Mississippi

Course title and description

Mammalogy BISC 350. Advanced undergraduates, who will use this research and writing assignment to improve their understanding of mammals and the importance of scientific communication. I have contacted Kasey Baker, Jami Mathewson and Robert Cummings

Number of students

18

Start and end dates

23 Aug 2014 - 15 Dec 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --DrBuchholz (talk) 20:27, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

@DrBuchholz: Can you double check your dates? Cause the end date is less than a month away. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 07:10, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited: Date is OK, students have been working off line, and are expected to make only minor factual edits during this first attempt.DrBuchholz (talk) 18:11, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

I am approving this, I have been in communication with DrBuchholz and his class and familiar with his assignment. There were some bureaucratic issues that prevented him for bringing this forward earlier. - Kz Kayz911 (talk) 18:41, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

 Done Ok, sounds good. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:26, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation Monthly Report for October 2014 is available

Hello everyone, The Wiki Education Foundation monthly report for October 2014 is available as a PDF, on-wiki, and on our blog.

Thanks!

Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 01:25, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application: Jsunit99

Jsunit99

Jsunit99 (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   Want to contribute to the new user's development, as well as promote the importance of Wikipedia for College students in their learning.

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).

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instamojo_Inc. Updated the funding part. Have been a Tech enthusiast and I read articles on Funding and advancements everyday.

4. How have you been involved with welcoming and helping new users on Wikipedia?

   No.

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.

   No, anything of this sort has never happened.

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?

   Whenever there are some news related to Startups or Organizations, mostly funding, mergers etc. Yes, I can easily give upto 3 hours a week.

8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?

   Teaching them how to properly cite any information which they recieved from somewhere else. Citation is as important, if not more, than one's own writings. It supports as a proof for the article/edit.

9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?

   Would make sure the student gives the author credits or properly address the owner.

10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.

    Addition of writings that have been copyrighted without the permission of the author/copyright holder.

11. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

    Have been a senior manager at Entrepreneurship Club since the last 2 years and have recently joined Wikipedia to start contributing. Experience working with various organizations.

Jsunit99 (talk) 11:45, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

Sorry, I don't think you have enough experience to be an online ambassador. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:32, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: Amandastra

Amandastra (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I'd like to learn from the Ambassador community and to be listed as a resource for my University.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   Boston, MA. I work for Harvard University and also serve as a resource for Simmons College.

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   I am a librarian at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America and also have a Master's in history.

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   I am a librarian and have worked with several classes and hosted edit-a-thons. I have also presented to other librarians about using / supporting Wikipedia. I am interested in thinking more about Wikipedia and critical theory / pedagogy.

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I'm particularly interested in helping reverse the gender imbalance among Wikipedia editors and in helping history and women's and gender studies classes.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Amandastra (talk) 21:09, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

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

Name

Louisa Bufardeci

Institution

Photography Studies College

Course title and description

Image Cultures 1 This course develops an understanding of the various histories of photographs with an emphasis on Australian photographs. The students are first year undergraduates. They will each be invited to write a Wikipedia article on one Australian photographer who is not yet represented on the site. This is the major assignment for the course. I have not arranged to work with an experienced editor or WikiProject yet but am open to doing so.

Number of students

Numbers are not yet available but based on previous years it might be around 40.

Start and end dates

26 February - 4 June 2015

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Louibu (talk) 23:28, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

@FKoudijs (WMF), AKoval (WMF), and TFlanagan-WMF: Can you help determine the best person for this instructor to talk with? Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:26, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Helaine (Wiki Ed). Happy to help. :) And, sorry about the delayed response. Holidays... Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 23:13, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Louibu. Thank you for your interest in having your students contribute to Wikipedia. Australian educators have been participating in the Wikipedia Education Program since 2010. You can learn more about these projects on Outreach wiki. You might try to contact the users there for advice. Getting involved with a WikiProject is also a good idea, as the members might be willing to be online ambassadors or article reviewers for your course. It looks like there is an active Photography group here on English Wikipedia. I would encourage you to reach out to them on their talk page. I would also like to offer my support to you as you design your assignment and plan your pilot. My team, [Global Education team] at the Wikimedia Foundation, supports educators around the world outside of the U.S. and Canada. So I am your best point of contact to begin with. Feel free to email me: akovalwikimedia.org. I look forward to talking with you. All the best, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 23:13, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I have just given Louibu the epinstructor right and I am looking forward to seeing her students' work. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 16:45, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application: Sarvesh

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.

---

सर्वेश मिश्रा

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}

सर्वेश मिश्रा (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I want Distribute My Knowledge To Others.

2. In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.

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.

   NO

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?

   YES

8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?

   BY REGULARLY CHECKING

9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?

   FIRST I WARN THE STUDENT AND FOR FURTHER TAKE ACTION

10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.

    NOT GIVING CORRECT INFORMATION ABOUT FILES.

11. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

सर्वेश मिश्रा (talk) 13:26, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

• Do you have any experience on other language wikipedias? Because your edit history on en.wiki is very extensive. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:12, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

@Stuartyeates: I think you mean "not very extensive". I think those "optional" questions shouldn't be optional at all. Otherwise we won't have enough information to assess the user. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 08:56, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

• I decline to endorse- many questions are unanswered and the answers provided are unsatisfactory, as well as being a new and inexperienced editor. Thanks, and happy editing. --L235-Talk Ping when replying 16:54, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
• I think this should be closed as declined. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:41, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
• Echo above. I also want to note that the student should be enrolled for a course for University of Western Ontario yet he chose to enrol in a course for East Carolina University ^{Education Program talk:East Carolina University/Motivation for Athletes and Students (Fall 2014)/support}. Something fishy is going on. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:49, 28 November 2014 (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.

Apparent Canadian class assignment?

Yesterday a whole bunch of new articles appeared on Wikipedia about exporting Canadian agricultural technology to Nepal. Each is written by a different, new editor, about a different agricultural product. In some cases they tout a particular commercial product, in other cases a generic product or technology. None of them are suitable as Wikipedia articles; they are analysis and how-to, suitable for a class assignment or an internal company document.

Here is a partial list of the articles: ‪Exportation of Canadian Lentils to Nepal‬, ‪Dairy Cattle Genetics‬, ‪CDC Baler Oat‬, ‪Sorghum-Sudan Hybrid Grass‬, ‪Fruit tree grafting‬. I've been prodding them as I come across them, but is there any way to find out who is behind this - and get them to understand what is and isn't a Wikipedia article? Maybe draw them into the established educational-use system here, if they aren't aware of it?

I apologize for posting on this board. I did post about it on the Incidents board, but from the edit history it doesn't look as if anyone is monitoring that board. --MelanieN (talk) 16:37, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

No problem. Actually, I watchlist both boards, but I've been away lately. You did the right thing by PRODding the pages (although I imagine an encyclopedia article could actually be generated about fruit tree grafting in a more general sense, as there's quite a history of it). For communicating with them, the best way is to look at each article's page history to find the accounts that edited it, and then post to each user talk page with Template:Welcome student, which was specifically created for that purpose. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:47, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any Canadian classes that are dealing with agriculture. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:50, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the information! --MelanieN (talk) 05:10, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Requesting Support From a Campus Ambassador

My students will be tackling a Wikipedia editing assignment based on WikiProject Countering systemic bias/open tasks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/open_tasks I have done some limited editing and would very much appreciate the assistance of a Campus Ambassador. Is there an Ambassador at my institution, California State University, Fullerton? --Dalton D. Hird 00:27, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

@DaltonHird: I would have loved to support your class had we started this earlier in the semester. Alas, I'm no longer in LA. NativeForeigner might be able to help you. I know you've already met some of the other Wikipedians in the LA area so if you could talk one of them into becoming a campus ambassador they might be able to support your class. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:08, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

@Chris troutman: Thanks Chris! I am sad this didn't work out too but greatly appreciate the help you have given me in the past. Wishing you the very best in your move! --Dalton D. Hird 01:18, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

@DaltonHird: I could provide some limited remote assistance, but I'll be much too busy to provide anything beyond minor assistance between coursework and Arbcom until 2015. Apologies. NativeForeigner ^Talk 02:28, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

@DaltonHird: do you plan on using the enwiki Course pages for this? (You are not currently flagged as an instructor or have a course page setup-but it's not hard to do!). — xaosflux ^Talk 03:38, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I just this evening requested instructor privileges so I can list my institution (California State University, Fullerton) and course page. Is this the same thing as "enwiki course pages"? --Dalton D. Hird 03:47, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, sorry for the jargon! Someone should action your request below soon. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:59, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Asim Khairdean - please see https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Khairdean

Institution

Sawtry College

Collaborative working

The main focus is on how to work collaboratively - learning about Wikimedia projects. The course is for a secondary school in Cambridge - students will be aged 12-16 I have not got any edits on Wikipedia.

I have been using Wikiversity so far. Please see my User space https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Khairdean

Number of students

Classes are of around 25-30 students in each.

Start and end dates

From January to April 2015

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Khairdean (talk) 15:32, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

@Khairdean: Should you be moving the course page from the existing IP sub-space into your own user sub-space? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:28, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited: Do you mean like this: I copied the text onto a new page in my user space... User:Khairdean/Collaboration on the Web is that OK? Khairdean (talk) 14:14, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

In the future, you can move a page instead of copying & pasting. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 08:54, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip, will do so in future! Khairdean (talk) 09:42, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Any update on my request for course instructor? I would also like to add an institution in Sierra Leone: Wikiversity:Kulafai_Rashideen_Secondary_School in Moyamba which I hope to be visiting early next year... Khairdean (talk) 09:46, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't think the education interface is implemented in Wikiversity. What you're requesting only functions within English Wikipedia. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 20:57, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes I think you're right - I will therefore move lessons towards Wikipedia based activities - as outlined on the course page. I propose to keep the Wikiversity page as a space for students and teachers I work with to expand on curriculum and lesson plans/resources while using Wikipedia to develop editing, collaborative skills. So it would be great to add my school and my partner school in Sierra Leeone. Logins could be used in both ..pedia and ..versity so that would not be a problem... do you think this could work? Khairdean (talk) 12:04, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

has there been any discussion about implementing an education interface on Wikiversity? Fabian Tompsett (WMUK) (talk) 12:16, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

It's live on the German Wikiversity: https://de.wikiversity.org/wiki/Spezial:Einrichtungen --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:29, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Dalton D. Hird (course page draft)

Name

Dalton Hird

Institution

California State University, Fullerton

Course Title

Gender and Technoculture: Looks at the interrelationships among gender, technology, identity and cultural power. Level of students is sophomore, junior and senior. We will be working mainly with the Wikipedia: WikiProject Countering systemic bias/open tasks: [[5]]

Number of students

Approx 39 students in each class and two classes will be engaged in the project, for a total of approximately 78 students.

Start and end dates

Assignment begins Dec 1 and ends Dec 18, 2014.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Dalton D. Hird 03:42, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• I encourage WEF to endorse her request. I met the professor months ago along with other Los Angeles denizens. She and I weren't able to have long conversations about her course structure and I'm not there to support the class in person but I think she can do well run her course with our program. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:19, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

  As this is time critical and it is a Holiday weekend, I'll provisionally grant this account flag based on @Chris troutman:'s endorsement. (@DaltonHird:, I'm a Wikipedia administrator, but not part of the Education Program staff - one of them may reply with additional information for you, please check back here to see.) You should be able to create the course by following the prompts on User:DaltonHird/draft_course_page now. — xaosflux ^Talk 05:10, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

  • @DaltonHird: I'd like to be in touch with you about your course and to make sure you know about Wiki Ed's resources for teaching with Wikipedia. We typically encourage professors to spend at least six weeks on their Wikipedia assignment, so I want to make sure your students have the training they need. Please email me so we can discuss your course. Thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing from you! Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:42, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
    • @Helaine: Just emailed you and looking forward to working with you in whatever capacity makes sense! --Dalton D. Hird 17:39, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Checking on a class

I see that there is a class project at Talk:Ion channel linked receptors#Class project, but I cannot find a working link to the instructor's talk page. Could someone please check as to whether the class project is within "the system"?

More broadly, is there a way for editors to search for approved instructors, perhaps by educational institution? Maybe something like a user category that gets applied to the instructor's user page after completing training, so that there would be a category page to look at. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:52, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

They should be able to use Special:Institutions to find their school and see if any courses are in progress, clicking on courses will show the linked instructor(s). — xaosflux ^Talk 17:23, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! I used that, and the institution in this case, Clemson University, is shown as inactive. From that, it sounds like this particular class instructor has not gone through the system. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:41, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Course Extension API and work in Ireland

Hi, I'm a PhD student working under the supervision of Toni Sant (WMUK). As part of my work I was looking to draw down metrics on some of the groups of UK students as part of some ongoing research we are doing. He mentioned that there is an API that can be used to get this info. For other non-educational editathons I have been using Wikimetrics, and if there is any way to streamline the process of getting cohorts it would be a boon to me. Having a look around I can find APIs for generating/maintaining extensions, but I'm unsure if that is the one I am after.

On a side note, there has been some movement towards lecturers in Ireland being interested in using Wikipedia, with Wikimedia Community Ireland having done a small amount of work with a group of students in UCD, Wikipedia:WikiProject Ireland/UCD Decade of Centenaries Editathon Nov 2014. As this was our first time working with students, we were unaware that the course extension would have been desirable for us to have. I flag it so that we can discuss further work in Ireland down the line. Thanks very much Smirkybec (talk) 10:56, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Ed handout on medicine now available!

We’re very happy to announce that our new brochure, Editing Wikipedia articles on Medicine, is available for download. Many thanks in particular to Bluerasberry for his help in drafting the content! You can find it here: File:Editing Wikipedia articles on medicine.pdf.

Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:46, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Excellent start. Could use a bit of further editing IMO though :-) Will do so per [Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Thanks_from_Wiki_Ed.21] here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:01, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks to both Eryk (Wiki Ed) and Bluerasberry. Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:10, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Sandboxes are a disaster

What is the Education foundations position on the use of sandboxes? I find them to be a disaster. We basically end up with students written content and than repeatedly trying to copy and paste it into place at the end of their assignment such as here [6] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:01, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Doc James, our official position is that sandboxes are tricky. :) We offer instructors pros and cons of working in sandboxes and let them choose (see page 7, week 6 of the syllabus brochure for the text, or see it in action in our new Assignment Design Wizard). In that particular case, though, I'd say the sandbox is somewhat orthogonal to the real problem, which is that the student hasn't gone through training on MEDRS and seems to be under the impression that he or she will only be graded on what's in the livespace, not what's in the sandbox, both of which run counter to Wiki Ed's recommendations (we don't have any record of that student participating in our program). Since thanks to Bluerasberry we now have a handout specifically for students to edit medicine articles as mentioned above, hopefully you and other med editors can direct students you stumble across who aren't in our program to consult that resource. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:58, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes and will also work to improve the wording of that handout. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:02, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm noticing much the same things as Doc James, and I share his concerns. At #Checking on a class, I pointed to a class from Clemson that does not have a course page. I'm now seeing edits by students from that class showing up on a lot of neuroscience pages, and it's very much a matter of the students plopping down a copy of the sandbox draft, then leaving a note on the talk page (in which they refer to the instructor's user name, except that no such user account exists here), and then apparently checking out. I've left the student-welcome template on their talk pages, but I don't think they have looked back and seen it, and the only way to communicate with the instructor is to track them down off-Wiki. On the plus side, the students have made some helpful expansions of some pages, but on the down side, their edits have also had a lot of mistakes, and it's burdensome on me to have to see these edits show up all at once and then have to consider correcting them myself. The abrupt copying from sandboxes exacerbates the problem. One solution might be for students to post on the article talk pages before they start their sandbox work, with a link to the sandbox, so interested editors could give feedback before everything gets plopped into mainspace. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:20, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

For the UCSF project we had all students edit live and it worked better. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:07, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Sandboxes are a disaster

What is the Education foundations position on the use of sandboxes? I find them to be a disaster. We basically end up with students written content and than repeatedly trying to copy and paste it into place at the end of their assignment such as here [7] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:01, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Doc James, our official position is that sandboxes are tricky. :) We offer instructors pros and cons of working in sandboxes and let them choose (see page 7, week 6 of the syllabus brochure for the text, or see it in action in our new Assignment Design Wizard). In that particular case, though, I'd say the sandbox is somewhat orthogonal to the real problem, which is that the student hasn't gone through training on MEDRS and seems to be under the impression that he or she will only be graded on what's in the livespace, not what's in the sandbox, both of which run counter to Wiki Ed's recommendations (we don't have any record of that student participating in our program). Since thanks to Bluerasberry we now have a handout specifically for students to edit medicine articles as mentioned above, hopefully you and other med editors can direct students you stumble across who aren't in our program to consult that resource. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:58, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes and will also work to improve the wording of that handout. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:02, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm noticing much the same things as Doc James, and I share his concerns. At #Checking on a class, I pointed to a class from Clemson that does not have a course page. I'm now seeing edits by students from that class showing up on a lot of neuroscience pages, and it's very much a matter of the students plopping down a copy of the sandbox draft, then leaving a note on the talk page (in which they refer to the instructor's user name, except that no such user account exists here), and then apparently checking out. I've left the student-welcome template on their talk pages, but I don't think they have looked back and seen it, and the only way to communicate with the instructor is to track them down off-Wiki. On the plus side, the students have made some helpful expansions of some pages, but on the down side, their edits have also had a lot of mistakes, and it's burdensome on me to have to see these edits show up all at once and then have to consider correcting them myself. The abrupt copying from sandboxes exacerbates the problem. One solution might be for students to post on the article talk pages before they start their sandbox work, with a link to the sandbox, so interested editors could give feedback before everything gets plopped into mainspace. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:20, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

For the UCSF project we had all students edit live and it worked better. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:07, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Prof NeuroJoe

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

See WikiProject Medicine. I pinged Ian (Wiki Ed) there. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:27, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I have sent him an email and will try to follow up. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:44, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

No response. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:57, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Doc James I got some news. This person is attending to an unexpected personal matter and may not be available to engage Wikipedia right now, but I understand that next term this person might revisit Wikipedia. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:00, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Blue. Hopefully they will engage with the community more first. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:33, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Student editors

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

@Debaser42: @ProfDRS: It looks like this is your issue to clean up. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:32, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks - I've contacted the students. Apparently they forgot how to cite properly. Additionally there was some confusion about hitting the review button, which they weren't supposed to do. Sorry it took me a few days I was stuck in airports. Debaser42 (talk) 16:14, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Student welcome templates

I just made a pair of bold edits to Template:Welcome student and Template:Welcome medical student, and I'm posting here in case anyone else wants to review what I did: [8], [9]. My thinking is that we keep having problems with "stealth" classes where the instructor does not create a course page and is difficult to contact, and so maybe we can get help from the students when that happens. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:51, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I think we should go further and ask for a bot to add Template:Welcome student to all enrolled students. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:48, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, and I like that idea. As I see it, however, the biggest problem is with student editors who are clearly student editors but who are not enrolled, because the instructor is not working with the Education Program. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:15, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Students are writing their content in word

And then simply dropping it into an article without actually reading the existing content. This is unfortunate and is wasting everyones time. Examples include here were they drop it into their sandbox and than onto the main article a couple of min latter [10]

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

Right. And who's bright idea was Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure? I may be dumber than the average bear, but it took me weeks, if not months, to find my way around Wikipedia. And I wasn't dropping content into GAs and FAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:48, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Adventure may need to be make much more difficult. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:33, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Between this, and sandboxes generally, there's an emerging problem of students, and educational institutions, incorrectly seeing Wikipedia as the place to publish your term paper on the web. Dumping text here isn't the same thing as editing, and it's getting to be an issue of WP:What Wikipedia is not. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:18, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, The Wikipedia Adventure (TWA) was a result of an m:IEG (Individual Engagement Grant) given by the WMF to User:Ocaasi (Jake), who also runs WP:The Wikipedia Library, which is now an official WMF program. Congrats on that Jake, by the way. I'm not sure if Jake is planning on making many more big changes to TWA, but I think I recently saw him help with a bug fix. Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:21, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

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

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

Name

Kelee Pacion

Institution

Cornell University

Course title and description

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

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

Number of students

18

Start and end dates

January 21, 2015 to May 6, 2015

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

Hello Saguaromelee. I am curious what kind of Wikipedia contributions would be required as part of this course. Also, I see from your user page that you are a librarian. Are you the instructor responsible for assigning and grading Wikipedia contributions? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:17, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I am co-teaching with a Cornell Faculty member, we will be sharing the grading and assignment responsibilities. Our first goal will be to train the students in the proper techniques for editing Wikipedia articles- starting with the tutorial, adding credible sources to existing articles, and culminating with an expansion of a stub that will be located via the wiki projects pages- most likely in the area of the life sciences. We will follow the appropriate style guide for whichever project is hosting the specific stub. --Saguaromelee (talk) 17:22, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Welcome Saguaromelee, and thanks for the reply. Would you please inform us as to who the instructor is that is co-responsible for assigning the project and grading it? Do you know if they have a Wikipedia user account that they plan on using? I saw your contribution to the article herb farm. I see you have some knowledge about how to cite references on Wikipedia. Have you had any help with this from anyone? I noticed you used <ref>encyclopedia</ref> as one of your references, which isn't exactly helpful to readers. =) It currently shows readers "encyclopedia" when they currently look at the reference list (#6). Perhaps you were trying to figure out how to use the wp:refname function? What were you trying to cite there? I also noticed several other things that could be improved with your contribution. Do you have currently have anyone that helps you learn more about Wikipedia? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:40, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Biosthmors. I'm not involved with the Education project, but I am a long-time editor and admin who has helped Saguaromelee learn how to edit and negotiate Wikipedia. I am her spouse, so I will be available in person to continue mentoring and to assist in any issues that emerge. The herb farm article was a test run so she could go through the process of gathering sources, drafting, formatting, and moving into article space. I believe the rogue tag you reference was a mis-click resulting from using the Insert Citation tool. If you click Insert Citation > encyclopedia and don't do anything else, that's what it inserts. We just missed it when we moved the text over. Anyway, I'm confident in her abilities at this point, and I will be available to coach as needed. The Cornell faculty member does not have a Wikipedia account yet, but if he decides to create one we will make sure he is appropriately introduced and mentored as needed. Saguaromelee should be considered the primary point person for the on-wiki activities. --Spike Wilbury (talk) 22:54, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• I emailed this person offering an online tour of Wikipedia and perhaps even a campus visit, as I am not so far away and because I am interested in the class subject material. Saguaromelee, I would love to assist. I hope that we can talk soon. Biosthmors, thanks also for your review and interest. If it can work out, I would love for us to be able to talk together. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:31, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
  • @Saguaromelee: I reviewed your course draft, and it looks good. I went ahead and granted you course instructor rights. I will be following up with more information about the Wiki Education Foundation and how we can support your Wikipedia assignment. In the meantime, it would be a good idea for your co-instructor, who I will also get in touch with, to set up a username on Wikipedia. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 03:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

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

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

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

Hi Doc James, as I mentioned above, I am a long-time editor and admin making myself available in-person to assist with this course. I'll be consulting with Kelee today about the questions posted here, but in the mean time:

1. I have worked in WP:CP extensively in the past and will be available to address any problems that arise here.
2. I seriously doubt any of these students will end up choosing medical articles (this is a general biology class) but I have already coached Kelee in WP:MEDRS and the community focus on high-quality sources. I will be watchlisting and monitoring each article the students touch.
3. Reference formatting is covered as part of the Online training for students (week two). Again, I will be monitoring and helping correct errors.
4. Again, I will be helping with the process. The intent of week six-seven is to focus on stubs, but we will ensure they aren't duplicating content.

--Spike Wilbury (talk) 12:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Nor am I an Education Program member, but this is a proposed biology course, and because of the significant bad impact seen from student editing in the biomedical realm, I have additional concerns about your proposed course page.

1. In week two, you have one talk page post. In general, student projects fail because the students never learn to use article talk and user talk to communicate with other editors and reach consensus. Would you be willing to have two full weeks of significant article and talk page engagement?
2. In week three, you have students choosing articles. In general, student editing fails because of poor article choice, and no notification to established editors or discussion with established editors of proposed sources. Would you be willing to alter your design to have at least two weeks of students engaging on article talk, with at least five posts discussing sources, before deciding on a topic?
3. In week four, you have students commenting on existing articles. In general, those kinds of posts are a drain on established editors, as the students rarely have the knowledge so early in the game to be offering any commentary, yet established editors see those posts on their watchlists, which means they have to click to read something that may not be useful. Would you be willing to eliminate that step entirely, and instead, encourage students to spend extra weeks and more posts actually engaging in discussion of proposed sources with established editors on article talk?
4. In week five, you have students selecting an article, but you do not have them posting notification to that article talk page (or alternately, a Wikiproject page for a new article). So, many students find their work reverted because of poor article choice.
5. In week six, you have students compiling sources. That should have been done before they selected an article, and in consultation with other editors on article talk. Many problems can be avoided if students choose adequate sources before locking in on a subject. Would you be willing to alter the order in your course design?
6. Then you talk about etiquette? That should have been in week one. Students should learn about plagiarism, copyvio, edit warring, how to sign their talk page posts ... all in the first weeks.
7. Then you have articles moving out of sandbox. Only if the sandbox is first posted to talk, or to a relevant WikiProject, and based on discussion with other editors. Would you be willing to agree that your students will not move articles out of sandbox without first posting to article talk?

In short, the course designs that have been put forward frequently on this page have been inadequate, resulting in frustration for students and other editors here, and no meaningful content work. There are many ways you can make your students' editing experience less frustrating for them (and for us), and the typical course design advanced by the Education Program is not it.

Are you intending to be an engaged, available, on-Wikipedia professor? Will other editors be able to reach you on your Wikipedia talk page, will you monitor it daily, and will you log on to watchlist and follow your students' edits? Will you maintain a list of your students, and the articles they edit, on Wikipedia so other editors can monitor and assist?

Unless the traditional course design is modified, I believe it is time for the Education Program to refrain from bringing more students into this program, where the experience will be frustrating for all. As a regular editor dealing with many problematic student edits in the biomedical realm, I would not want to see an approval for this course design, as it is unlikely to result in a positive experience for either the students or other editors. Modifications suggested to result in a better experience for all. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:11, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I strongly agree with User:SandyGeorgia, particularly point 5 - collect your sources and verify the quality/acceptability before writing even one word of article or draft content. I also highly recommend that students interact properly with relevant WikiProjects, from even before they start writing content and continue to do so throught the entire process. Project members are valuable "second opinions" and can also help with quality control and source verification. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I would like to say thank you for your comments and suggestions, and they will be considered accordingly. It is my intent that the students engage with Wikipedia in a positive manner that is appropriate. This means I will be working with members of the education portal, ensuring the students follow the style guide for the Wikiproject that houses their articles, and engaging with members of projects as well. In addition, Cornell has a plagiarism tutorial that should help to address some of the common issues with plagiarism, and I have recruited a second librarian to help with the monitoring of the course. Concerns and comments about the curriculum design will be taken into consideration as we develop the course for our students. Again, thank you. --Saguaromelee (talk) 21:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

And thanks for the kind response. As a matter of record, I will be opposing instructor rights for any courses that don't show a course design that a) encourages adequate engagement of students on talk pages, and b) identification of sources, before they choose topics and start writing content; and c) courses with a design where students will be moving content into mainspace from sandbox without first notifying article talk or relevant Wikiprojects. I hope you find the steps I've laid out helpful, and I hope you'll be enacting them. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:39, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, I am working with the instructors on campus and have discussed your comments. Regarding b, Week 4 has the students doing scholarly research and compiling a short list of articles. Week 5 has them finalizing their selection and building a bibliography. This is a normal academic process for researching and writing. Regarding c, see Week 6: "If you are improving an existing article, create a detailed outline reflecting the content the article will have after it's been improved, and post this along with a brief description of your plans on the article’s talk page." This should provide plenty of a heads-up for anyone who's involved with the article before any content is added to mainspace. As I mentioned to Doc James, I will be making myself available on a daily basis to the instructors and will be monitoring their edits. --Spike Wilbury (talk) 22:30, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Accountability

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

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

Finally, I propose:

• EP staff should produce a bi-annual report (December and June, coinciding with term-ends) detailing:

1. Number of registered courses that term (including name of course), with:
2. List of instructors and other ambassadors, online assistants, whatever we're calling them these days
3. List of students enrolled
4. List of articles affected.

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

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

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

I think "List of instructors and other ambassadors, online assistants" can be viewed in Special:Userlist by selecting appropriate userrights. — Revi 15:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

More of the walled garden (which is what the EP software accomplishes). These folks should produce a list at the end of each term, so editors actually working in the trenches can review the damage at the article level. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:58, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I plan to do so. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:14, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, much appreciated :) And I see the CUNY course page articles are being filled in, via some strange mechanism that I don't understand, meaning that I can't diff now to the course page of yesterday, which included no article links. Meaning also that some of my statements throughout these discussions look wrong, since I can't diff the CUNY course page with no articles listed. More of the walled garden issues with how the EP software is set up ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:42, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I added in the articles this morning because you requested that someone fill it out so any interested editors can take a look at the articles students worked on. My team is working on reviewing and improving those articles today. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thank you, and that is appreciated. But since whatever mechanism you use to add them doesn't allow me to link to a diffed course page showing no articles listed as of yesterday, several posts above now have no meaning. These software issues are an example of the EP walled garden, where it operates differently from the rest of wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:02, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I didn't know ENI existed till just now. I agree, WEF needs to get in the game or just close shop. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Chris troutman, just to be clear this board is WP:ENB, and ENI (the incident noticeboard) is that away. Although we have pretty much no admin oversight or enforcement in either place, and lots of questions about accountability to community norms and standards, and their enforcement or lack thereof. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:43, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• The course instructor right allows someone to create and edit a course page, nothing else. There are very few circumstances where it should be revoked; revoking it does very little good in most situations, since it mostly just means that instructors would have a hard time making their courses trackable even if they wanted to. A trackable shitty course is better than an untrackable shitty course. I've taken some administrative action against students, but a majority were my own, and the rest were issues I found and dealt with privately without bringing to EN or ENI. I am fully of the opinion that a strong consensus formed to block a class or to nuke a class's edits on this board is valid, and am willing to act as a closer (and implementer) for any such discussion regarding a class that I haven't been involved with, as long as I haven't formed a personal opinion about the course in question strong enough to interfere with my ability to read consensus. (Sorry all re: my recent absence from this board and email; I had a peripheral aneurysm this semester.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:44, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Okay, now I'm really confused. Kevin Gorman, are you saying that only accounts/editors who have some sort of relationship with WikiEd, as you have, are allowed to post here? And only WikiEd sanctioned admins can act? If that's the case, then the walled garden analogy should be extended to walled country and WikiEd should separate from WP and set up their own wiki. Seriously. Victoria (tk) 19:52, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

That's so close to the opposite of what I'm saying that now I'm confused as bloody hell too. Whenever there's an effort to pass a new type of proposal in a new place (or someone uses RfC instead of RM,) there's always debate as to whether or not that consensus is valid and enforceable. All I was saying was that I'm strongly of the opinion that it's valid and enforceable and that I will enforce it - pretty much encouraging people to open broad proposals to block or massrollback classes where they truly feel it's necessary. And I have no idea where you got the idea I was suggesting only editors connected to the education program could post here. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:00, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Struck. Victoria (tk) 01:28, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• I agree with Kevin that there is rarely a purpose in removing a course page, bad as their work may be--it's the most practical way of keeping track of the material that needs to be dealt with. Indeed some instructors whose courses have run into criticism one year simply do not list them at all with the program in subsequent years in the apparent hope to avoid scrutiny.

More generally, I have no current involvement with the Ed program, though I have in the past and I do know about the problems, so if you're looking for a non-involved admin in some case, I'm available, but I need to be notified. But I think this board and the incidents board are the best places for discussion, though I'd advise notifying the Admin noticeboard if there's something admins in general need to look out for. DGG ( talk ) 19:04, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks DGG. It's helpful to know that non-involved admins are available. I've struck my earlier post. I think I conflated Kevin's post above with an earlier post he made in regards to his RfA being for his paid position, which confounded me (I didn't know we granted tools for general use in the community to editors in paid positions). That I'm confused about the various roles, and I'm a somewhat involved member of the community, does tend to underscore the walled garden analogy. Anyway, I've decided to unwatch (or lurk) for a while and spend some time thinking all of this through. Victoria (tk) 01:28, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi @Victoriaearle: - just for clarity, I work for a university and not for Wiki Ed, and suspect that I am a well enough established member of the community that I would have passed RFA regardless of whether or not I was working for Berkeley, especially with Ed and Keilana conomming me. I didn't run as a single purpose admin, although I did run in part so I could do things like block students and take care of histmerges, deletions, etc as necessary for students, and got at least a few supports on the grounds that I was working for Berkeley. I don't think there's really a limit on who we give tools to if they pass RFA. WMF staff use separate accounts for admin actions related to their work, but at least a few have admin privs gotten through RFA on their personal accounts as well. Probably a more accurate analogy; I know there are at least a couple of paid chapter employees with at least some sort of advanced privileges used for on-wiki work. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:38, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Interface

The lack of diffs in the EP software is frustrating. Just now, this popped on my watchlist:

• (Education Program article log); 21:03 . . Prof.Vandegrift (talk | contribs) removed article Posttraumatic stress disorder from MaScott14's list of articles for course Education Program:Drake University/Global Youth Studies (Fall 2014) ‎

But I can't diff that as I normally would by going to that page and looking at its history.[11] However the prof removed the student, finding the diff requires a separate step.

So, that student did work on that article, and by removing the student, the prof leaves us less accountability in terms of reviewing articles that were edited by students, checking for copyvio, and even potentially running stats in the future. So, the software creates another accountability issue, and why did Prof.Vandegrift remove an article from the course page when that student did work on that article? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:24, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Another incomplete course page

How can there be any tracking or accountability if course pages are incomplete? No articles listed:

• Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014)
• BrooklynProf, Pharos, Megs, Barnardzines, HeatherMW

At minimum, can the EP start asking profs to fill in their course pages? This is the course with the copyvio, but we still don't have all the articles filled in. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:15, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Transitioning students to WP specifically with regard to WP:OWN

Question. Context first. This arises from the stuff discussed over at ENI about course encouraging students to go after GA status. I've been working with a student editor, Leslierrn‎ who got channeled into the GA process for an article to which she added a lot of material. We had a bit of a death slog interaction yesterday concerning changes to the article, Sleep hygiene. From my perspective, I couldn't figure out what was driving her to be so, so intense about preserving every bit of her contribution. I reflected on that last night and this morning, and I ~think~ some of it, is the difficulty of transitioning from school "head" to Wikipedia "head". At school, when you create work, it darn well better be your OWN, and you hand it in, and get graded, and this becomes part of your "permanent record". Right? As you all know, WP is nothing like that, at all, and WP:OWN is a bad bad thing here. Scholarly integrity is super-important - those values translate directly, but not the OWN piece of that. It is kind of subtle but absolutely essential. And i have to say that in most of my interactions with students, this OWN thing has been one of the most difficult aspects of the interaction, because the student has no idea that the framework they are applying to the interaction is just not appropriate.

It seems to me that channeling students into GA makes the transition to the world of WP much, much harder and confusing, because it continues the model where their work gets graded. That is a little bit beside the point. It made me wonder, and here is the question - how much do course instructors and ambassadors explicitly talk about the dramatic difference between academic work product and WP work product, specifically with regard to OWN? It is funky, because we want everyone (student editors included) to bring high scholarly values (no plagiarism, use great sources, reflect them accurately in content, etc) but not OWN. ( I searched the archives for discussion of this, and found little. maybe i missed it.. and sorry if I did.) Thanks in advance. Jytdog (talk) 17:08, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi everyone! Just to clarify, there were no hopes of preserving every bit of my content. Yesterday the main concern was that chunks of content were being deleted by other editors, without recommended revisions. I have already clarified to Jytdog that I am not approaching revisions with an WP:OWN head. I think there IS room for clarification to students about how to be prepared to deal with responses from the Wikipedia community and what to expect. That is where I was caught off guard, but I have been learning, and have a better understanding of the process. I think everyone wants to be respected, and collaborative feedback will facilitate the learning process. Leslierrn (talk) 17:45, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Leslie this is not about our interaction, specifically. It is a general question for the EP and this is not the place to work out the issues on Sleep hygiene. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 17:52, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the interaction with Leslierrn on that article as symptomatic so much of OWN, as one of the unfortunate GA situation she was thrust into. I think it might be best to let go of the meta-issues on this one :) The real (problematic) example of student OWNerhip was over at Eating disorder not otherwise specified, where the student edit warred to revert eight times, and never engaged talk until after the article was protected. And that sort of thing is addressed by teaching students early on to engage article and user talk. In general, though, talking meta-issues with someone who was thrust into a weird situation as Leslie was might be better after the article issues have settled. I suspect you two, in very good faith, are talking past each other a bit :) I think we're getting there !!!

On the broader questions you raise, again, we aren't usually dealing with students who operate on the level that Leslie is operating (responsible discussion, concern for the article content, and concern that seems to extend beyond just getting a grade); normally, student OWNership issues result from the student wanting their edits to stick so they can get a grade, and they don't care that much about article quality, and they don't even know how to use talk pages. And I don't think that's fixable, other than the same ... get students to engage article talk sooner in the game. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:25, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Sandy this is indeed not about the specific interaction with Leslie; it is something I have been thinking about for a long time now that was just crystallized by that interaction. I do hear you that this might be too advanced and we wish that much more basic stuff was understood and most importantly enacted by student editors. And as you say this does play into larger issues of students dealing with the wider WP world and not just their bubble. But I would like to hear from the EP folks - how much do course instructors and ambassadors explicitly talk about the dramatic difference between academic work product and WP work product, specifically with regard to OWN? Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 18:28, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

This discussion reminded me of an observation that I made a few years ago, when I came across some student edits from a high school class. Let me underline from the start that these were younger students than those in the other class projects we have been discussing here, and I recognize the difference in age and maturity. They apparently had been assigned to make some talk page suggestions on a page that was semi-protected, so they couldn't edit it directly. They didn't know to sign their comments, so I had auto-signed them using the unsigned2 template. So far, so good. But one student came back and kept trying to change the timestamp on his signature. I realized that he had left his comment after the class deadline, and was trying, after the fact, to coverup the evidence that he had been late. It's kind of funny, but I think it shows that students start out here with a focus on what the instructor wants, not on what other editors here might think. I think that's what is often in the "head", as opposed to OWN per se. Most students don't really care about OWNing the pages, but they do worry that other editors may alter their work in a way that will adversely affect their grades. Instructors need to configure their class projects so that this won't be an issue (a good reason why GA for grades is a terrible idea). Paradoxically, a lot of experienced editors, acting entirely out of good faith, enact a kind of reverse-OWNership when they are afraid to revert student edits because they are afraid of adversely affecting the student's grades (or maybe hurting their feelings). Editors should always understand that grades are not Wikipedia's responsibility, and WP:BITE only gives student editors the same consideration as all other new editors, and nothing more. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:45, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

thanks, trypto. i agree with all that - the instrinsic COI for students becomes really clear with regard to NODEADLINE and OWN for their specific edits and comments, and is a yet deeper underlying issue. Jytdog (talk) 18:59, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

What this shows is that instructors (and students) who use Wikipedia need to rethink the very basis of assignments, grades, and so on. Problems arise when they do not do so. Again, the conclusion is not that Wikipedia processes shouldn't feed into grades. The conclusion is that you can't treat a Wikipedia assignment like any other. And that, in my view, is a good thing. But if you are against that (and each to his or her own), then you shouldn't be here in the first place. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:09, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Jbmurray (sorry for the ping, not sure if you are watching this or not) - you lost me on the last sentence. I am afraid to ask, but what/who are you referring to with "you" and "here" in that sentence? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 20:16, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry. I mean, if you are an instructor who doesn't want to rethink the way in which your assignments and grading practices are handled (and I can understand and sympathize, if not necessarily agree, with that), then you shouldn't be here, on Wikipedia, setting your students assignments in this collaborative space. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:22, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

thank you for clarifying Jytdog (talk) 20:42, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

jbmurray i was just reading your great essay about your Madness course. I loved the whole thing but especially this bit - it speaks directly to what I was trying to raise in this thread: "(I should note that I was not much concerned if the final product of the students' assignment was not "all their own work"; I considered that persuading others to work with them, and working well with others, was an integral part of the operation....)" Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 21:35, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. This is my point. I'm glad we're on the same page.  :) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:39, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I looked in that essay for how you actually graded them. the essay says that the grade was dependent on reaching FA (A+) or GA (A). And you had the blessed help of the FA team for free TA-ing. Lucky! What about grades for work on articles that didn't reach GA, and importantly, did you build in points/grading for "playing nicely" or ding students for bad behavior (edit warring, commenting on contributor, etc)? I am really intrigued by the idea of building in grading for process, not just product. This would also mean eyeballs by somebody on the instructor side on a more day-to-day basis..... Jytdog (talk) 21:46, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't (and haven't) done things exactly that way again. But: 1) the grade wasn't dependent on reading FA or GA. I merely said that if a team got an FA they'd get an A+. They could have got an A+ without getting an FA, however. And likewise with the GA. In other words, they wouldn't have to have hit those milestones to get those grades, but if they did, that's what they'd get. NB of course this wasn't the overall class grade. The Wikipedia assignment was one out of many. 2) We were very lucky to run into the FA-Team, but we weren't counting on it. But what was important about the FA-Team was not that they gave the students an easy ride. Far from it: they were constantly pushing them to do better. And the students on the whole took up that challenge. 3) No, I hadn't built in grades for "playing nicely," but that could be a factor. The thing is that you don't know what kinds of interactions they'll have, or indeed whether there will be interactions at all. So it's hard to do that kind of thing formally. But put it this way: students who interact well do better, full stop. Which is why it's worth teaching them to communicate, to seek out people who can help, and so on. 4) Finally, yes, absolutely, this approach requires a lot of work from the instructor, on a day-to-day basis at the very least. We see that very rarely these days. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:11, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

thanks that is a thorough answer. i hear you on the "don't know who you'll run into" piece of that. Jytdog (talk) 23:34, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Can someone please contact this professor about the proper use of Wikipedia?

Late last month we began noticing a flood of articles about exporting agricultural products and technology to or from Nepal, apparently written from a Canadian point of view. They looked like research reports or student essays, featuring sections like "Benefits for Nepal" and "Benefits for Canada"; some of them promoted commercial products; they were not at all suitable as encyclopedia articles. I asked at this board if anyone knew of such a student project, but no-one did. A partial list of articles (namely the ones we found) and their current status at Wikipedia is here: User:MelanieN/Nepal-Canada articles.

We finally learned, from one of the students,[12] that this is in fact a student project, from the University of Guelph in Ontario. They said the project is run by Manish Raizada, a Plant Agriculture Professor and Plant Geneticist. "For more information you can contact him raizada@uoguelph.ca". Can someone approach this professor, find out what the assignment actually was and what he hoped to accomplish, and maybe talk to him about appropriate ways of using Wikipedia? This mass uploading of student essays has taken a lot of editor time to track them down and deal with them, and the result is likely to be that almost all of them will wind up either deleted or gutted. --MelanieN (talk) 21:40, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

See also this: User talk:MelanieN/Nepal-Canada articles. --MelanieN (talk) 23:14, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

@MelanieN: Thanks for the head's up and investigative work. :) I have contacted the professor to get a look at his current syllabus and help make recommendations and get the students to use our training materials in the future. He has already agreed to do the assignment with more transparency and visibility, so we will take a look at the current work and see where the problems are stemming from. Do you have any specific advice you'd like me to pass on, or can you point me to some of the articles the students edited? Thanks! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:38, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for getting in touch with him, Jami! I'm sure he meant well and will appreciate some guidance. (It's too bad our school-support systems are not more widely known.) Here is a list of the articles that I and others have found: User:MelanieN/Nepal-Canada articles. Pretty much all of them are getting deleted, redirected, or severely trimmed. This is because they consist primarily of analysis, recommendations, and other synthesis/original research. Perfectly appropriate for a student term paper; inappropriate for an encyclopedia article. A compliment to pass along: the students had clearly been very well trained in Wikipedia formatting and such. --MelanieN (talk) 19:00, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Some suggestions on areas where they could use more training: Although they all cited references, for the most part good Reliable Sources (which we appreciate), their method of citation was not consistent. The best used Wikipedia citation formats including url links where appropriate; some used an academic citation format without links; I saw at least one that simply listed the references without citing them in the text. Also, only one student seemed aware of the existence and use of talk pages. --MelanieN (talk) 19:18, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application: Bishalbaishya2012

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.

---

Bishalbaishya2012

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}

Bishalbaishya2012 (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   To help the unfortunate ones by providing them wih rich verified konwledge and for my own experience too.

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).

   SEDS-APSN, Anini,etc available in my contributions page

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?

   By promoting creativity and self respect cum reliance

6. Have you had major conflicts with other editors? Blocks or bans? Involvement in arbitration? Feel free to offer context, if necessary.

   Not yet, but the most major conflict was, when I made an article on 'Theory of everything (physics)' that was deleted but I didnot protest for it had valid reason.

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?

   When I am subscribed to internet usage whice i don't get often for my financial status.

8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?

   using plagiarism checkers and verifing myself. Moreover I will promote self reliance and creativity to reduce this in long term if I am given a chance

9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?

   Proper counselling and taking stern steps of deleting their contribution if required.

10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.

    Coping someone elses work without any consent according to me is copyright violation whic also include coping elses work though the author has not given right to do so.

11. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

    I am a writer in many sites even as a ghostwriter

Bishal Baishya 14:13, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

• Of my English and chemistry teachers of my school Army Public School Narangi
• Members of SEDS-IndiaStudents for the Exploration and Development of Space — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bishalbaishya2012 (talk • contribs) 14:13, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

I'd say no to this application, as a lack of experience. Less than 200 contribs doesn't seem enough for me. — Revi 14:22, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

WP:NOTNOW. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:13, 20 December 2014 (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.

WP:ASSIGN

FYI, I've just made these revisions, to reflect recently raised concerns: [13], [14], [15], and [16]. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:36, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Also – just asking as a preliminary feeler about the sentiment locally at this noticeboard – are we getting to the point where we should consider elevating WP:Student assignments to being a guideline? --Tryptofish (talk) 00:03, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

YES. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:13, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

In light of the recent issues, I suggest we guide instructors towards sandboxes as the PRIMARY means of issuing assignments. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:45, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

To the point of even just having work be at User:Instructor/sandbox/Article_a, etc - which is a copy/paste re-write DRAFT of existing articles or a Draft space for a new article; have the END of the assignment be posting to the Talk: of the real article (or submitting the draft to AFC). Any feelings on this? — xaosflux ^Talk 01:47, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with this idea, for numerous reasons. Amongst which, that this hardly encourages students to interact with the community; and yet (as SandyGeorgia repeatedly and correctly notes), one of the main ways in which student projects on Wikipedia can go wrong is where there is little to no interaction. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 05:58, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Jb on this one. One of the rather large benefits of a Wikipedia-based assignment executed correctly is that it allows undergrads to participate in a community of practice, a staple of all level of academia beyond undergrad but something undergrads rarely get to do. I fully support taking further actions to stem the flow of bad content - and honestly am geting pretty pessimistic about the idea of any class creating a large amount of high quality content unless they have an experienced Wikipedian in the classroom for more hours than most volunteers can manage, be it their professor, a TA, or hired help - but don't think this is the way to go. Kevin Gorman (talk) 06:23, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Agree, sandboxes are not a/the solution. Redesigning courses to encourage early and much user and article talk interaction is. I am actually enjoying at the moment working with the UCLA course (the faulty GA group) because They Are Talking on user and article pages (hallelujah!). The horrid courses are the ones where the students work in sandbox, never engage the community, don't know sourcing or writing or style, and then try to drop their content in the day before they are graded, but have never found a talk page. I have never thought sandboxes are a good solution: engaging the community early and frequently is. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:39, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Agree there--the biggest problem is the "drop their content" part---if the assignment will use a draft/sandbox it needs to not include a requirement to slam it in to an article, suggest replacing removing any such requirements in favor of posting their suggest to merge in on the article talk. For assignments that use incremental editing over time this isn't needed-, but end-of-semester dumps need to stop. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:19, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Another revision, following the issues that have been coming up: [17]. And let me ask again whether there are any editors here who would see problems with proposing upgrading it to a guideline. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:55, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

As a veteran AFC reviewer I'd stronly advise against requiring student drafts goung through AFC. AFC is in a permanent state of severe backlog, there is absolutely no guarantee that a draft submitted there will be reviewed before the end of the semester. Student work should be graded in draft/sandbox. There is no guarantee that students' work will make it into mainspace at all or if it does, that it will remain untouched there long enough to be graded. Surviving mainspace should never be part of the grading criteria. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:32, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

The section at WP:INSTRUCTORS already says just that. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:17, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Using Word

Hi, I am following the Wiki template on a word document but am lost in terms of what the font size should be for headings. Is there a template I can use with word? If not, how can I find out what font size I should use and/or what font? Thanks.Ftj123 (talk) 00:02, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Word is the wrong tool for the job. You should be using the edit box and preview button. MER-C 03:50, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Using a userspace draft is much preferred over using an external word processor. Instead of word-processor-type styling, Wikipedia (and wikis in general) uses specialized markup, so none of your Word formatting - text size, links, etc. - will be preserved when you move it to the wiki (and yes, I tried it with VisualEditor). Plus, if you keep the work online, it will be preserved should your computer get lost or broken somehow! ansh666 01:40, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Need Help Setting Up A Course Page

I'm trying to incorporate a Wikipedia assignment into a course that I'm teaching 2015 Q1 and need help establishing a course page and getting in touch with an ambassador. I spent over an hour with the Meta:Training for Educators page yesterday, but couldn't make any headway with this particular aspect.

Here, some information about the course: It will be a small course (only 3 students and me)--it's just a chance to experiment small-scale with Wikipedia assignments, before trying them out in larger classes, if I have success with them. The topic is on German emigrants in North America in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Thank you for your help.DerrickRMiller (talk) 14:31, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

@DerrickRMiller: I will email you with information about the Wiki Education Foundation's resources with links and instructions for setting up your course page. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:45, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Derrick R. Miller

Institution

University of North Carolina Wilmington

Course title and description

German Diasporas is a course for advanced undergraduates that covers German-speaking emigrants moving from areas in which they were members of the language majority to areas in which they are in the language minority. Wikipedia assignments--improving existing articles and creating new ones--will accompany their reading all semester and form part of their final research project.

Number of students

3

Start and end dates

12 Jan 2015 - 9 May, 2015

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --DerrickRMiller (talk) 14:57, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

DerrickRMiller, are you aware (and will you make your students aware) that when translating, copyright still has to be respected? That is, direct translations are copyvio, and when translating sources, we still have to rephrase in our own words. Also, will you make your students aware of WP:NONENG so that sufficient notes will be left in the citations ?

Next, you have never edited an article on en.wiki; how do you propose to instruct students to use a website you have never used? Will you be logging on daily or weekly, reviewing your students' work, engaging the encyclopedia yourself? I raise this query because absent profs, unknowledgeable in Wikipedia policies and guidelines, have historically been a recipe for failure. Would you consider engaging the encyclopedia yourself, to learn more about the editing environment and polices and guidelines here? Also, your course design indicates 3 students: is that accurate? And will your students be working in sandbox (drafts), or directly in article space ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:34, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

@DerrickRMiller: I'm happy to see you've looked into the secondary literature that's available, as that can otherwise get students into some trouble when trying to find enough reliable sources to use during their research. I'm also very happy your students will be required to complete the online training. We'll have some tools that will make it easy for you to track whether they completed that. Looks like you have a good plan so far—I'll let you answer the other questions that have been raised, and then you should receive some links to training materials from User:Helaine (Wiki Ed). Thanks. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:55, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I have already gotten in touch with DerrickRMiller to tell him about all of Wiki Ed's resources including the educator and student trainings. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:31, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi SandyGeorgia, while you raise a valid concern about translations still being under copyright, I can't find anything on the course page that indicates the students will be translating from German. Can you help point me to where your concern arose from? Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:37, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia:, First, despite the "German" prefix, this course is taught in English and relies on English-language sources. However, thanks for the WP:NONENG information. I'll mention it to students. Second, I have spent the past several days working on creating an article in my own sandbox, which I submitted for review and requested for creation today. However, I see the process is severely backlogged and could take months to appear. I am new to contributing to Wikipedia and am taking this opportunity to learning about it myself slightly ahead of, and together with my students---hence, my reading of the Wikipedia Education resources, my completion of the training modules, my communication with Helaine (Wiki Ed), and my own experimentation in my sandbox. It is indeed a group of three students and we will be working closely together all semester long. The students will begin working in sandbox (drafts) before editing live.DerrickRMiller (talk) 17:43, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping DerrickRMiller. Even though the course is taught in English, the possibility arises that some of the best-available sources will be in German, so I wanted to be sure you would point out translation copyvio issues to students (in my Spanish-language source reviewing, I've become aware that many editors don't realize that translation can be copyvio). I would offer to review your sandbox and move it to mainspace, but I see a good deal of the sourcing is German. If you give me permission to edit your sandbox, I'll add whatever I can in terms of cleanup, etc, but I'm afraid I can't offer to move it into mainspace without being able to access sources. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:56, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

@DerrickRMiller: I have granted you course instructor rights, and went ahead and created your course page. I also added you as the instructor on the page. Please let me know if you have any further questions. Thanks! Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

• @DerrickRMiller: Great article. I'll AGF on the sourcing. Article looks good and I've moved it to Alexander Volck.--v/r - TP 21:07, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application: SuperHamster

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

SuperHamster

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}

SuperHamster (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I'm currently a campus ambassader at Ohio State, and have helped with two courses this last semester as a campus volunteer. I'd like to expand myself to also be an online ambassador, per a request made by the instructor for Education Program:Miami University/Religions of the Hebrew Bible (Spring 2015). In general, I spend a lot of my time helping Wikipedians at the help desk and Teahouse, and would be happy to further contribute here.

2. In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.

   I primarily edit the English Wikipedia, which I detail a bit more on userpage. My second home is the Commons, where I've uploaded pictures and occasionally deal with licensing and copyvios. On the backend, I'm also a member of the Wikimedia OTRS team, answering emails sent to the Foundation.

3. Please indicate a few articles to which you have made significant content contributions. (e.g. DYK, GA, FA, major revisions/expansions/copyedits).

   David Hudson (pioneer) was my first good article, which was reviewed just a couple weeks ago incidentally. I have also done a couple DYKs, including one on David Hudson.

4. How have you been involved with welcoming and helping new users on Wikipedia?

   Yep - primarily through helping newer editors at the help desk and Teahouse, as well as helping users out who approach me on my talk page. I also spend time reviewing articles at AfC, a lot of which involve newer editors.

5. What do you see as the most important ways we could welcome newcomers or help new users become active contributors?

   I think the learning curve to jump into editing is rising every year, as Wikipedia becomes more complicated with rules, bureaucracy, etc. - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it helps ensure quality content. But it can also be hard as a newcomer. I think having resources for newcomers (i.e. the Wikipedia adventure, but better), as well as having experienced editors willing to help users out in a welcoming manner, go a very long way.

6. Have you had major conflicts with other editors? Blocks or bans? Involvement in arbitration? Feel free to offer context, if necessary.

   Nothing major that I can think of - no blocks or involvements in arbitration.

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?

   Yep - I edit daily, and am available for several hours each day.

8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?

   I deal a lot with copyright violations for both files on the Commons, as well as reviewing new articles through AfC. Checking student contributions for copyright violations will include thoroughly checking (or spot-checking, if checking every addition isn't feasible) contributions from students for copying or close paraphrasing; any incidents will be removed, and the student will be notified of the importance of copyright.

9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?

   The first step would be to notify the student of their copyright violation, and describe to them to importance of writing original work and respecting copyright law. Further incidents would require further discussion; if it continues to be a problem, the instructor would be notified and the editor may be blocked, in an extreme case.

10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.

    A copyright violation is when content is used on Wikipedia without proper permission and licensing. As Wikipedia is freely licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0, we can only use written content that is licensed under the same (or similar) license. Related to copyright violations are close paraphrasing, along with plagiarism (which is using content without proper attribution).

~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 21:13, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

• Granted This user already is a "course ambassador" following previous review. This user cleans vandalism, helps at the Teahouse, develops Wikipedia articles a and has been around a long time. Based on previous review, years of good editing, and this person already supporting a class anyway, I am granting the right. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:43, 23 December 2014 (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.

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

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}

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.

---

Name

ProfGray, a new account. Under my personal account, I have 6,000+ edits, 57 articles created, some XfD and maintenance experience, and in-depth mediation.

Institution

Miami University of Ohio

Course title and description

Religions of the Hebrew Bible (REL 314) is an introductory survey class, requiring no prior knowledge of the Bible. In this class, students will examine selected texts from the Hebrew Bible, using tools of critical biblical scholarship, such as biblical archaeology, literary analysis, source criticism, feminist theory, socio-historical criticism. Students will be exposed to Mesopotamian myths and archaeological data that form the background to the composition of the Bible. With collaborative assignments on Wikipedia, students will cultivate key skills in unbiased writing about controversial religious scriptures (i.e., primary sources) as well as scholarly debates (i.e., secondary sources).

As an initial benchmark and a final reflection, students will write brief, original essays about two of our soceity's major document collections: the Hebrew Bible and Wikipedia. For instance, students might compare editing methods, key principles, POVs, textual inconsistencies, and communal rituals. Thus, the Wikipedia process may deepen their insight and appreciation for how the Bible was composed and was shaping religious cultures.

The WP assignments will be incremental, starting with the art of Talk page conversations, followed by sentence-level edits with citations, then paragraph-level work, and finally to more challenging paraphrases of a scholarly debate. I will select most articles for student editing in advance. Although I've taught the off-line course twice, I'm still wondering how much content to leave aside for the WP work. Almost certainly this draft will be revised to cut down the substantive readings (e.g., for weeks 6 & 9) and the pace of assignments.

To make oversight manageable for me, students will hopefully work in pairs and then teams of ~4 students. I have been in touch with a few editors and would welcome more support.

Number of students

11 to 15 undergraduates, mostly upperclassmen

Start and end dates

Our semester beings January 26th and the Wikipedia training would begin Feb. 2nd.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: Thanks very much! --ProfGray (talk) 04:50, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

@ProfGray: are you willing to identify your alternate account (perhaps by e-mail)? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:51, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm willing to validate with you by email (I'll send a random string to each account's email and you can post them combined here), or you could engage a checkuser or arbcom for increased secrecy. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:59, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

This is not required for you to proceed, but may speed things up. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:59, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I'm happy to confirm, xaosflux ^Talk. The other account is known to at least 1 Wiki Ed staff person, via email. Would it be sufficient to inform one member of ArbCom? (A couple of them may remember me from my mediation role, though that was years ago.) Btw, I've noted the situation with a multiple account user box. Also, I will use the same computer(s) for both accounts, so isn't it traceable if I run amok? Thanks! ProfGray (talk) 15:05, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

The existing WikiEd person should be fine, they can come action your request. Unless you plan on running for RfA or the like you are not required to disclose; checkusers can correlate, but only if there is a specific issue. I'm marking your account confirmed for now so you can avoid captcha's in the meantime. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:12, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks very much. Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions or concerns about this. ProfGray (talk) 15:26, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

That Wiki Ed person would be me. Granting the user right now.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:40, 19 December 2014 (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.

Update from Wiki Ed, 16 December

In an effort to be more transparent about what Wiki Ed staff is doing, here's a status update.

Our staff is still going through student edits from this term, and removing bad content as needed. This is obviously an ongoing process, and we're looking through not only specific things posted here, but also contributions of all students in classes where we've seen several problems. We've created a list here, and if you come across articles that you'd like to have staff attention to fixing, please add it to the list: User:Adam (Wiki Ed)/Dashboard

A bigger question is how to prevent these problems in the future. I see several things we'd like to do differently next term:

• Better enforcement of our guidelines (e.g., make sure all students are enrolled on course pages, make sure all students have articles listed on course pages, make sure we discourage large classes from participating, make sure all students have completed the online training, etc.) — these guidelines exist for a reason, but weren't strictly enforced this term, and that was our mistake.
• Rethinking our support structure so it's more easily visible how an experienced editor who wants to help with a minor task (such as helping a student identify whether a source fits WP:MEDRS or not) can be involved.
• Better internal processes so Wiki Ed staff can catch and address problems (including plagiarism) without taking up community time, and better communication practices so we can clarify what we're doing to address problems when they do slip through our net.
• More staff attention to medical articles in particular.

The big question is obviously how we'll accomplish those. My team will be working on determining action plans for these in the coming weeks, and I commit to posting regular updates here on our progress toward determining how we'll effect those changes for next term. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 01:18, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:49, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

This all looks very good, except one note: "More staff attention to medical articles in particular". It's not just medical. It's content that is health-related or biomedical. The worst problems come from the psych courses, where they frequently make health-related or mental-health related claims based on primary studies. The impression students have is that because they can find a study in a peer-reviewed journal, that is a good source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:29, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Great catch, SandyGeorgia; by "medical", I mean those topics where students need to use WP:MEDRS, including psych, health, biomed, etc. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:53, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Hey, SandyGeorgia, we're workshopping ways to communicate that exact thought to prospective instructors. The concern is that MEDRS covers a range of disciplines, from sociology to psychology to human biology, etc. We don't want to steer courses toward these articles but we don't want to proscribe topics like biology or educational psychology because some topic areas may cause problems for the community and student editors. I think we need a good, succinct way to convey what sort of content would be "health-related or biomedical" to an instructor not familiar with WikiProject Medicine. Protonk (talk) Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:51, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Protonk. One psych student pointed me at File:Editing Wikipedia articles on psychology.pdf, which looks fine, and then proceeded to explain why his/her primary sources were acceptable according to that handout :) :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:01, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

No problem. The above was me signed into the wrong account. But either way we're looking at it closely this week. Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:05, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I want to say a big thank you to LiAnna and the WikiEd people for being genuinely responsive to the needs that exist. It's a pleasure to see such a responsive update, something that does not always happen when editors have concerns about WMF matters. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:37, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

First update, 18 December: Change in volunteer role

Hi all, as I mentioned above, we're changing things for Spring 2015 in hopes that we can head off some of the problems this term. Here's the announcement of the first thing we're changing: Rather than having individual volunteers ("Ambassadors") assigned to each course — which worked well in a few cases, but certainly not all last term, as you saw from some of the incidents — we want to provide staff support upfront to ensure Wiki Ed staff is onboarding each instructor. We'll be checking course design to make sure it meets our best practices, and we can make sure students are connected to the most up-to-date help resources we have. We hope that by making more checks at the beginning of the term, we'll be able to head off large classes (which we know don't work) before they begin editing, poorly designed assignments, or other things we know that will likely result in classes that don't improve Wikipedia content. We are also then in contact with each instructor, so we can follow up if course pages don't list student usernames or articles, or be the liaison between the instructor and the community if there's an incident in the class that needs immediate attention.

We also want to make it clearer how any community member who wants to help out with student articles can provide input on the tasks they're interested in. Our goal is to tag student work with specific suggestions for how to improve them. If you enjoy copyediting or wikifying articles, you'll find find pages to copyedit or wikify. If you want to provide feedback on a draft, you can find student drafts awaiting feedback. If you like finding freely licensed images for articles, you can see student articles that would benefit from images. If you want to evaluate whether sources on med-related articles meet WP:MEDRS, those will be tagged as well. For an example of the new system, check out our central portal for tagged articles: Wikipedia:Education program/Tasks

So we can be sure to recognize volunteers who continue to go above and beyond, we've created a self-report form for volunteers to track their time. The self-report form will help Wiki Ed write letters of recommendation for volunteers. We will also be using data reported in this form to prioritize passionate volunteers for Wiki Ed scholarships to events like WikiConference USA. You can find the form here.

One last practical note: This means we'll no longer be commenting on "Ambassador" applications here; this has always been a community process, and continues to be so, but Wiki Ed won't be promoting the Ambassador program as connected to our organization or granting "online volunteer" or "campus volunteer" user rights anymore.

Overall, the Wiki Ed team believes this change puts more burden on staff rather than volunteers, which we think is appropriate, and frees up any editors who want to support student editors to find specific tasks they are interested in, rather than the one-size-fits-all approach that was the Ambassador role previously. I'm happy to answer any questions. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:29, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

A few things:

1. Is it possible to get a list of all the classes working on articles that are part of WP:MED?
2. What is the definition of a "large class"?
3. You mention "sources on med-related articles meet WP:MEDRS, those will be tagged as well". How will these be tagged? We had discussed a bot that would list whether or not articles are "reviews" based on pubmed. Is this what you propose? It would definately speed our follow up and hopefully help guide the students. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:09, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

1. Re: list of all the classes, we are asking that specific question in the Assignment Design Wizard (you can see it in action at wizard.wikiedu.org); by onboarding all classes through us, we can make sure all the instructors go through the wizard, providing us that list because they've indicated whether or not their students will be working on med-related articles in the wizard.
2. Re: definition: Jami and Helaine are evaluating what has worked and what hasn't over the last several terms to come up with a number, and we'll post those guidelines here once we have that in place.
3. At Wikipedia:Education program/Tasks, you can see the category; our Wikipedia Content Experts (Ian and Adam) will be closely working to tag our students' work, but I am open to ideas for bots to do this as well.

Thanks for the questions. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:34, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

How is it determined which articles need to be checked for MEDRS sources? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:11, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Doc James: In particular, you can keep an eye on these to categories to see any assignments where the instructor indicated they will or might work on medical topics: Category:Wiki Ed-supported courses that will work on medical topics and Category:Wiki Ed-supported courses that might work on medical topics. (None so far.)--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:47, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

User:Sage (Wiki Ed) why are there none listed? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:09, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

User:Doc James Nobody has used the Assignment Design Wizard since User:Sage (Wiki Ed) enabled that feature. User:Helaine (Wiki Ed) and I will be following up with the current classes to find that out and add the categories manually. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:26, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I drew positive attention to this at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 179#Credit where credit is due. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:41, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Query: useful update

Thanks for all that you are trying to do. But one thing that would significantly make things less miserable in here would be to find a way to get students to understand how to find the right sources early on. That would save us time, and result in a better experience for them.

Parent management training is a topic that affects the lives of children at risk (and one that I've encountered many times in my Tourette syndrome writing-- I'm glad we've now got a decent article on the topic, from Education Program:University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)/Psychology 220A (Fall, 2014)).

Here is the version edited by the student. On this topic, there are FIVE recent secondary reviews:

1. PMID 23877886 Furlong 2013
2. PMID 23595362 Maliken 2013 (for neutrality, this content should probably be reflected)
3. PMID 23420407. Michelson 2013
4. PMID 22161373 Zwi 2011
5. PMID 23994367 Menting 2013

The student had used, quite briefly, only two of them, and most of the article was cited to outdated and primary sources, creating a POV that affects children at risk (implied efficacy in areas where none is demonstrated to my knowledge). I have worked through a lot of the article, yesterday got my hands on the five reviews, and will continue updating the article over the next few weeks.

Now, I don't have access to a University library, and students do. How can we convince them and train them to go out and find the most recent sources, so others don't have to basically rewrite articles? This student did a competent job on the article, but was using poor sources. Getting students better trained up in how to find the best sources would be a huge help! Will staff contact the profs who are working on health and biomed topics to emphasize to them how to search PubMed, for example? Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-30/Dispatches. Because another issue in that article is the use of books by authors who have a vested commercial interest in selling a specific PMT program. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:20, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Intriguing idea, SandyGeorgia. I think that's definitely something we can highlight with instructors. What are good practices beyond looking for the most recent review articles on PubMed? Not having access either, is there a flag in PubMed where you can limit the search to secondary sources or to a certain time period? Is there a general cut-off we should suggest (last 2 years? 5 years?)? I'm definitely willing to get this information to instructors, just want to hear from med-topic editors what the specific guidelines should be around the *best* MEDRS-compliant sources. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:52, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

@LiAnna (Wiki Ed):. Yes, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-30/Dispatches explains it all (I hope :). There is a flag in the PubMed search engine, where you can restrict the search to "review" articles only. And if there are a ton of reviews, you can further restrict them to "free full text"-- getting only freely available reviews. That's what makes it so frustrating that students aren't doing this! We don't really have to suggest a cutoff to them, if we can get them to use PubMed, because PubMed coughs up abstracts chronologically newest to oldest-- so they would have to go out of their way to get the old ones :) The Dispatch I linked above explains how to use the PubMed search engine, but for you to give it a try just to see how easy this is:

• Go to the pubmed search engine.
• Type in, for example, Tourette, and then click on Search
• You'll see 4,180 article abstracts, and scanning down them, you will occasionally see the words Free PMC Article (that means you can access the full text, not just the abstract)
• Now look up at the left top corner, you will see "Article type", and click on "review". Now you have restricted to Tourette reviews, 810 articles.
• Now look at the second box in the left top corner, for text availability, and click on "Free full text"; that gives you 81 free full text reviews.
• And finally, there is a date restriction box as well. Click on Publication dates, 5 years, and you now have 35 recent reviews that are freely available.

Now, since students have access to a University library, they need not restrict their searches to only those freely available; they should be able to access many of the recent reviews through a university database (which I can't always do-- I have to call in favors).

Click on any article and go to the bottom left corner, Publication Type, click to expand, and you will see if "Review" is indicated.

See also that there is a PubMed identifier (PMID) on every article. If students would use PubMed, and give PMIDs in their citations, our work would be WORLDS easier, because we can simply click the PMID link and discover if the article is a primary study or a secondary review. Including a PMID is as simple as typing PMID followed by the number, which generates a wikilink, like this: PMID 25295029. If we could get students to do this, it would make a world of difference.

At Parent management training, even though the student did competent work and the sources look decent on the surface, s/he actually used a lot of books written by authors who have a "brand-name" program for sale, so using independent, third-party journal reviews would be preferable. S/he wrote a decent article that I'm having to almost re-write. Wouldn't it be great if we could have harnessed that student to work together, rather than me having to re-do good work? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:11, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Super useful, thank you so much, Sandy! We'll definitely work on getting this in front of students and instructors editing medical-related topics next term. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:37, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Followup on PMID issues

• Education Program:Louisiana State University/BIOL 4125 Prokaryotic Diversity (Fall 2014)

Another course page not filled in

• Gdawgme, B.J.Carmichael, Mike Evers, Natker

From the useful link in the Update above, I have bookmarked Wikipedia:Education program/Tasks, where my first stop was Bacteriovorax stolpii.

This example highlights why it would be helpful to a) get a hold of these profs early on, b) get course pages filled out, and c) get students engaged sooner in the editing process. The two students involved in this article did all of their work in about a month, and haven't (yet) returned to Wikipedia. And Wikipedia has missed a chance to get important info from the students, who have the sources. Since this course has run for several semesters, it seems the prof would have/could have communicated certain info to the students by now.

See my edit. The students didn't include PMIDs or free full-text links when available. It could be such a simple thing to communicate this info to courses on biomedical topics.

But much more importantly, the students did not include page numbers on book sources, so we are missing an important piece of info needed for verifiability, and who knows who will ever provide that. That is info that we shoulda/coulda gotten from them while they were actively editing; this is a missed opportunity, and the prof could be/should be explaining to students how to correctly cite info. (I can make no comment on the content of the article, other than saying that I find it basically indecipherable.)

If we can intervene sooner with profs, we will lose less opportunities to get good citation info. Could someone contact this prof? Since the course has run for several semesters, either s/he should be teaching the students correct citation, or s/he should be cleaning up these articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:02, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Sasata on the job! Several fixed; having the Wiki Ed task link is grand. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:55, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Assignment design

I'd like to break out some of the issues that came up in the discussion of Saguaromelee's rights request, and discuss them more generally.

That assignment plan was created with the Assignment Design Wizard (please try it out!) that Wiki Ed has been working on for the last few months. I still have a bunch of work to do to document how this tool works and what its on-wiki components are, but basically it walks through a series of steps that present best practices for each stage of a Wikipedia assignment, with options for the instructor to customize the details to fit their class, and at the end it uses a set of template on Wikipedia to compose an assignment plan based on their choices and their course timeframe. You can see the building blocks of these assignments here: Category:Assignment Design Wizard output templates.

SandyGeorgia gave a list of specific suggestions for that assignment plan, which are relevant for general best practices of assignment design. I haven't considered each of them in detail yet — and in general, I'm wary about too much detail in terms of how to accomplish the broad goals of figuring out how to contribute effectively, because what is appropriate for one class may not be necessary for another — but these are the kinds of things that can be changed in the wizard and its output template. I've copied those suggestions here so we can discuss them in the general case, and hopefully come to some consensus on specific improvements we can make to the assignment design system.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Note: I'm refactoring the suggestions to group them by the main issues, and clarifying some of the details of what happens when in the default timeline.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:35, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Getting students used to communicating on-wiki and working with other editors

• In week two, you have one talk page post. In general, student projects fail because the students never learn to use article talk and user talk to communicate with other editors and reach consensus. Would you be willing to have two full weeks of significant article and talk page engagement? [SandyGeorgia]
  • It's probably worthwhile to go into a little more detail here, about how students can get a fair amount of experience with on-wiki communication and try especially to engage with other editors early on. --Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk)
  • The key components for the 'practice communicating' concept are these:
    • Wikipedia:Education program/Assignment Design Wizard/Practice communicating - the 'practice communicating' assignment that is, by default, one of the earliest tasks for every article-focused assignment plan. This could be elaborated upon to give students a little more in-depth experience with communication.
    • Wikipedia:Education program/Assignment Design Wizard/Editing basics in class - basic bullets fo what to cover in class as students get started. This could be expanded to give the instructor more specific ideas about what sorts of on-wiki communcation practices to talk about.

• In week four, you have students commenting on existing articles. In general, those kinds of posts are a drain on established editors, as the students rarely have the knowledge so early in the game to be offering any commentary, yet established editors see those posts on their watchlists, which means they have to click to read something that may not be useful. Would you be willing to eliminate that step entirely, and instead, encourage students to spend extra weeks and more posts actually engaging in discussion of proposed sources with established editors on article talk? [SandyGeorgia]
  • In general, this would be a step backwards in terms of engagement with other editors, because in the vast majority of cases they would simply get no response. In most cases, students should be choosing topics that have articles that are really quite bad. The point here is to get these newcomers to think in broad strokes about what good coverage of a topic should look like is a part of. The one thing we could do, though, is to couple this step a little bit more closely to the article choice process, so that they would leave a comment on an article that they think might be the one they would like to work on. That way, it could contribute to the goal of getting them into regular communication with the editors who work in the same area. And maybe we could create a template (or just some boilerplate as an example) so that they will also communicate that they are considering working on the article for their assignment.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:35, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Here's the relevant template that forms that part of the assignment plan:
    • Wikipedia:Education program/Assignment Design Wizard/Evaluate an article
      • This comment, from SandyGeorgia, really hits something on the head for me: "students rarely have the knowledge so early in the game to be offering any commentary". I've also noticed this in the portion of the assignment where they peer review each others' articles, so I'm wondering if there's a list of very concrete questions students could use to both evaluate and article and make more constructive suggestions on the talk page and in the assignment peer review process. For the "evaluate an article" module, is there a checklist of steps and/or standards to which students are pointed? They might need more specific direction here, starting simple with things like "do all citations have full info?" or "is there an appropriate infobox?" to more complex prompts like "are there more recent scholarly sources?" or "does the article follow WP:NPOV?" AmandaRR123 (talk) 23:09, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
        • In response to this feedback from SandyGeorgia and AmandaRR123, I've gone ahead and added a preliminary set of questions to the course page suggestions on evaluating an article. You can see the new text here. If you'd like to suggest questions for students could reflect on, I'm happy to expand the list! Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:22, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

• Then [in week 6] you talk about etiquette? That should have been in week one. Students should learn about plagiarism, copyvio, edit warring, how to sign their talk page posts ... all in the first weeks. [SandyGeorgia]
  • The idea here is not to talk about etiquette, or these other issues, for the first time — it is covered in the training, and is also something that generally comes up in the early in class discussions (although we could make some of that more explicit by adding detail about what to talk about in class, in the intro to Wikipedia and Editing basics segments). Instead the idea is to cover these *again* right at the time when students are likely to beginning engaging more heavily with other editors as they start to get inolved in mainspace. Frontloading all of the training and howto information isn't going to be as effective as revisiting important topics (with different levels of detail) over time.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:35, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Choosing articles & sources, and communicating with editors of those articles

• In week [four, due week 5], you have students choosing articles [that they will consider working on]. In general, student editing fails because of poor article choice, and no notification to established editors or discussion with established editors of proposed sources. Would you be willing to alter your design to have at least two weeks of students engaging on article talk, with at least five posts discussing sources, before deciding on a topic? [SandyGeorgia]
  • Article choice is indeed one of the key areas for improvement. Note that this first step is not about making the final decision of which article to work on, but about exploring Wikipedia and finding some likely candidates... which then go through some feedback and vetting before settling on the one to work on. In general, though, posting on talk pages is not a good solution for that problem. The pages where there are a lot of active editors are ones that are likely more mature articles than students should be editing anyway... and even then, more often than not there will be little or no response to the students that comes in time for them to usefully incorporate into their decisions. What we're working on instead is to improve that vetting process, with Wiki Ed staff providing help to create lists of appropriate articles for students to choose from and/or vet students' choices.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:37, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Here's the template for that segment:
    • Wikipedia:Education program/Assignment Design Wizard/List article choices

• In week five, you have students selecting an article, but you do not have them posting notification to that article talk page (or alternately, a Wikiproject page for a new article). So, many students find their work reverted because of poor article choice. [SandyGeorgia]
  • This is fixed in the Assignment Design Wizard now, with instructions for students to put the {{course assignment}} template (with a link to their course) on the talk page, immediately after finalizing their article choice. That was just something I'd forgotten to implement until two weeks ago, since the old format of standard course pages had those instructions outside of the timeline itself (which also has probably been part of many student editors miss that step). (Down the road, probably by the Fall 2015 term, I think we will automate this, so that an appropriate message shows up on the talk page immediately when a student editor gets assigned an article. We'll also be working toward a system that encourages courses to get their assigned articles listed, with reminders if they neglect that.)--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:37, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

• In week [five, due week 6], you have students compiling sources. That should have been done before they selected an article, and in consultation with other editors on article talk. Many problems can be avoided if students choose adequate sources before locking in on a subject. Would you be willing to alter the order in your course design? [SandyGeorgia]
  • I think this gets things a little backwards. The important thing is to choose a topic for which good sources exist. That's not really dependent on the student exploring the sources ahead of time. This is the part where we want to tap into the expertise of the instructor, because they will generally have a working knowledge of the literature in their field... so they'll know which topics do have good sources available (even if they don't know specifically which sources will be most useful).--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:37, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
    • I'm new to working with classes online, but I've had thoughts similar to SandyGeorgia's on the timing of student research. With my most authoritarian hat on: students should be forced to do a mini-literature review while choosing a topic. My thinking is: they have to come up to speed on the state of a field before knowing if there's anything new to contribute. In addition, I think more guides to subject-specific editing are helpful, again with a focus on the research problems specific to each discipline. In medicine, you might want to emphasize Cochrane-type reviews; in history (where I've been working the most), you might need to emphasize primary vs. secondary literature, as defined in the historical disciplines rather than the medical. So maybe Week 2 also includes an introduction to "good research" in that discipline. I'm already noticing, with the class I helped last semester, that even though I felt like I stressed good research in class, that was the weakest point of several articles, so I'm thinking about how to make that a more organic part of the process. As SandyGeorgia mentions elsewhere, what students can really bring to Wikipedia is access to paywalled sources other folks don't have, so the assignment could encourage students to focus on that high-quality research as early as possible. AmandaRR123 (talk) 16:38, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Use of sandboxes, and moving out of them

• Then you have articles moving out of sandbox. Only if the sandbox is first posted to talk, or to a relevant WikiProject, and based on discussion with other editors. Would you be willing to agree that your students will not move articles out of sandbox without first posting to article talk? [SandyGeorgia]

Something that stands out to me right away is the last bullet point, about sandboxes. An awful lot of the recent discussions, as well as an awful lot of the problematic edits that I personally have seen lately, have arisen from students putting large amounts of text into main space without any prior interaction with editors, and then leaving. Consequently, I strongly support Sandy's idea about about requiring a post to article or project talk before moving the material out of the sandbox, and I would add that it needs to be far enough ahead of time, at least a few days and probably a lot more than a few, to allow editors to respond. I point that out because it's very actionable here. It's something that holds true for any kind of class structure that employs sandboxes, and it can be incorporated into the training materials as something that is required for all such classes. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:16, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I had one students do this. I provided a number of things that required fixing. She did not bother to address them and just dropped the content into main space anyway. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:52, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

It will inevitably be a problem here that anyone dissatisfied with the criticism can always go directly into main space, just as they can with WP:AFC. This is not solvable, as it's a firm principle that only the general community can ultimately decide on an article. It may be possible to find some way of providing notification in at lease some cases. DGG ( talk ) 19:09, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• Here are the relevant pages where we can rework the instructions for intial sandbox work and for moving into mainspace. I'm still thinking on how specifically I'd want to do it, but feel free to hack on these in the meantime.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:42, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia:Education program/Assignment Design Wizard/Conventional outline
  • Wikipedia:Education program/Assignment Design Wizard/Outline as lead section
  • Wikipedia:Education program/Assignment Design Wizard/Move to main space

Well, Sage (Wiki Ed), I see my suggestions made quite a splash ... folks are falling all over themselves to comment :) :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:06, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia: --Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:42, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Shane Gero

Institution

Education Committee Chair - Society for Marine Mammalogy Post-doctoral Researcher, Aarhus University, Denmark

Course title and description

The Marine Mammal WikiSprint (we call it a sprint because its short and has a directed goal) is an intense 1 week crash course in getting expert members of the international society for marine mammalogy involved in editing and adding content and references to Wikipedia. This is the first of several short, pulse-like, initiatives, which will hopefully bring our membership up to speed and get academics using wikipedia in their classrooms. Most of the enrolled users will be experts in the field of marine mammalogy: researchers, professors, public sector managers, grad students, but we will also include undergrad students and enthusiats. The key goal is to get all the marine mammal related content updated and on the watchlists for many experts in the community. We will be linking with the WikiOceans project and working to WikiEducation Foundation to move forward. I have spoken with Jami Mathewson at Wiki Education about our initiative.

Number of students

we are hoping for the initial class to be around 40-50 individuals, and to grow this for the subsequent "Sprint" in the late spring/summer.

Start and end dates

The first wikisprint will be Jan 18 - 25.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --ShaneGero (talk) 11:49, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Support. User has demonstrated capable editing in the past month within the marine topic. --Geniac (talk) 00:10, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Copy and paste bot going global

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

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

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

By the way we estimate about 3000 edits will need to be checked by the bot per day which will likely result in 375 diffs to be check. These are rough estimates based on a few assumptions. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:28, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Support

• Support I can help reviewing, though :P — Revi 07:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Of course. Hope many volunteers jump on board. This position will also collect data for publication. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support Stuartyeates (talk) 07:55, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support Nice initiative Doc - seems good to me, and will be interesting to see the results of this. I'll be happy to help, too. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 08:15, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks User:SuperHamster. Appreciate the support. I will ping you when it goes global. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:20, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Conditional support - OK, as a long time power user on enwiki, I highly doubt you will ever get full support for paid editing, no matter what. I suggest that your paid student good-faith-vandal-fighter does nothing more than set up the needed reverts with an understandable explanation why the revert(s) is/are necessary and then before actually EXECUTING the revert(s), gets the OK from an unpaid Wikipedian. I say this because otherwise your reverter is going to get a whole lot of flack from the community otherwise. The reverter, whoever he/she is, is going to have sleepless nights from personal attacks by student copyvio makers anyway in the beginning, so it would be very helpful for him/her if you set up a support network first of helpful insiders. Jane (talk) 10:13, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

  Taking the last part first, I agree that ensuring the new hire is aware of the risks associated with taking on a higher-profile position like this is very important. In my last decade on Wikipedia, I can say with some relief that most attacks and harassment I've personally encountered as a Wikipedia editor (and administrator) have been confined to the project itself and lasted for relatively short periods of time. Nevertheless, I also know of situations where harassment and doxing have extended to other websites and to the offline world. (Remaining pseudonymous should be carefully considered, though I suspect that some of the more industrious trolls on 'those other websites' will make an effort to pierce this individual's privacy; sadly, trying and failing to remain pseudonymous may end up attracting more unwanted attention than identifying oneself publicly from the outset.)

  If this new hire does not have administrative rights on Wikipedia, s/he may be insulated from some of the abuse, as it will be other Wikipedia editors who actually carry out the blocks and page protections—but that will be an imperfect shield at best.

  On the other hand, I would suggest that the 'administrative overhead' associated with the first part of the suggestion, while well-intended, is wholly unnecessary. Requiring a second person to endorse and carry out each revert of a copy-and-paste doubles the workload involved without actually protecting the project from anything. (Actually, it may make things worse than that—if a copy-and-paste is not remedied quickly, then subsequent edits to the article may make it more difficult to unwind the addition of copied material without losing the benefit of later efforts.) Speaking to paid editing in general, I don't think there should be a problem. Paid editing is seen as problematic when there is a clear conflict of interest in play, and especially where an editor is being paid to advocate for a particular position. In this instance, the editor would be paid to do something which precisely aligns with Wikipedia's interests: remove copyright violations from our articles, with no advocacy component whatsoever.

  It may be helpful to segregate the edits this individual makes as a paid employee (the copyright cleanup stuff) from the edits this individual makes (if any) as a volunteer by using two separate accounts. Especially for the first while, it may be worthwhile to restrict the number of reverts the employee should make with respect to any one instance of copyvio or plagiarism. (That is, refer cases to AN/I or ANEW sooner rather than later, even despite the blanket exception to 3RR provided for reverts of copyvios.) Bank some recognition and goodwill, and get the denizens of AN/I used to seeing your name. The importance of social skills (in addition to technical aptitude and English fluency) cannot be overstated in James' hiring decision. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• If James' hires someone, I doubt they'll get much flak for paid editing. I RFA'ed partly on the basis that the toolset would be helpful for my paid position at Berkeley which involves direct editing (although admittedly not as much as I'd like, I had a peripheral aneurysm this semester,) and my RFA ended up closing 88-2 and I'm not sure anyone even mentioned in a negative way the idea that I was engaged in paid editing (really, paid adminship.) I've gotten a few complaints about it, but I'm a generally controversial person and most of the complaints were just someone looking for something to head me over the head with rather than genuine concern. I've taken a couple irregular admin actions to correct problems my students were having (including blocking people who had serious problems with their content and weren't checking their email or going to class with instructions to come see me in office hours,) and have gotten universal support from the people who noticed it. As long as whoever James hires sticks to correcting problems created by education program students on their paid time, I doubt they'll get anything but thanks from the community. Kevin Gorman (talk) 18:56, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support. A worthwhile initiative. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support. May require more editor effort upfront but saves it on the backend when problems below the radar are caught more quickly. And support for a paid editor to clean up as well. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:39, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support, provided clear and publicly available parameters for the accounts editing activities are in place. Basie (talk) 19:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 19:18, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support. This is a good response to a big aspect of the problem. If problems with using the bot arise, I have a high degree of trust that they will be addressed. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:14, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support. If I understand correctly most of our paid editing concerns relate to advocacy and bias, which shouldn't be an issue here. --Richard Yin (talk) 15:23, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Copyright violations have been a problem since the very beginning of Wikipedia, with violations sometimes remaining unpatrolled for months. There are benefits for the regular editorship, and there are benefits for the students who need to learn how to write by themselves. JFW | T@lk 21:20, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support for the most part You may considered a phase deployment, you can get a good cross section of articles at AfC and we've had a lot of trouble keeping a handle on plagarism and copyright at AfC. Gigs (talk) 19:08, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Thanks User:Gigs. Already up and running at AfC here [18]. Here they are running on entire articles rather than on diffs so a slightly different task. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:35, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support I see multiple good reasons to support and perceive the reasons for opposition as fear of exposing existing problems, and not creating new problems. Here are my thoughts:

1. I have criticized this project a lot in the past and continue to criticize it, but my criticism does not lead me to oppose this going forward and is unrelated to this part of the project.
2. This proposal is to expose existing copyright violations which would not be found otherwise. Exposing Wikipedia's problems is troublesome because it hurts Wikipedia's reputation in the short term, but in the long term, I think the bigger problem is the fundamental fact that the copyright violations exist at all and that our infrastructure is unable to detect and correct them.
3. The "paid editors" which James proposes to hire are paid to delete copyright violations, and not to do anything else. A proposal like this has not been made before and I know of no comparable discussion anywhere which argues that a project like this should be prohibited.
4. I think that Doc James and his paid staff are very likely to fail in correcting the copyright violations that are detected here, just because I think the magnitude of the existing problem is so great that it will not be corrected by a small independent group. When they fail, that is going to place a tremendous burden on the rest of the community, and it will seem like new problems have suddenly appeared. However, these problems are not actually caused by James' proposal detecting the problems; the blame is on the broader infrastructure which leads people to copypaste copyrighted content into Wikipedia.
5. I do not agree that James, his employee, or any other volunteer has any responsibility to fix problems only because they expose them. It is useful to the community to expose problems even without any intention to fix them. It is generous of James to offer to hire one employee to try to fix the problems as best as one person can, but this generous offer is completely unrelated to anyone's right to make a bot to detect problems and to publish the list of the problems detected.
6. In my opinion, part of the reason why no one else has been quick to make a bot or process similar to this is because this is an unresolvable problem without hiring paid staff to edit Wikipedia. Fixing these kinds of problems borders on being the least fun kind of volunteering on Wikipedia, and it is my opinion that there will never be enough volunteers to address the problem of copyright violations. The most likely model for correcting this problem is paying people to remove them, because the task is so boring that volunteers cannot do this with current infrastructure. Because neither the Wikimedia community nor the Wikimedia Foundation like talking about hiring paid staff to fix problems, this is a taboo proposal, but in my opinion, this proposal is different from other kinds of "paid staff" proposals because the heart of this proposal is detecting a problem which can only be resolved with paid staff, and actually hiring paid staff or fixing the exposed problems is just a natural thing to do if there is a problem detected.
7. I agree that the existing of copyright-violating content is a personal problem for me. I personally have a need to edit within Wikipedia articles which are free of copyright violations, and I personally would benefit if someone could make a stronger guarantee that the Wikipedia articles I developed were continually checked to be clean from copyright violations. This copyright violation detection project would personally benefit me.
8. James is nice to ask for community opinion here, but this proposal is so thoroughly within community guidelines that he need not get community comment to proceed. The biggest potential problem here is a misunderstanding of what he is proposing, and the proposal itself is not controversial. The big point of controversy here is that, in my opinion, his proposal to run the bot is going to surface a lot of problems and the historical tendency has been to put the burden of addressing problems on the Wikimedia community. In surfacing these problems, James is presenting a problem which will for the foreseeable future can only be addressed by having paid staff edit Wikipedia. The paid staff discussions have historically been tainted because they were all connected to the idea of "editing to benefit an organization". In this case, this kind of paid editing has nothing to do with any organization and is merely paid editing for housekeeping, which is something hardly discussed anywhere. I do not think this proposal should be confused with the negative consequences of any other kind of paid editing which has ever been discussed.

Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:55, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for the comments. We are looking at 375 diffs to review per day from the entire En Wikipedia. That may be possible for the community to handle. We have picked up more than 200 true positive cases of copyright violations on medical articles so far. This proposal involves more than just detecting and fixing copyright violations though. I also want to collect data around the issue in question. This will include testing various templates to see if some have a greater benefit than others in prevention further issues / converting people to productive editors. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:32, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

• @Bluerasberry: In my case, your perception is mistaken. My concern is to prevent the erroneous deletion of non-infringing material, or the wasting of time, due to issues with the paid editor or the robot. I am not trying to prevent the "exposure" of anything. James500 (talk) 08:34, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

James500 I think we have different perceptions of this proposal, because you say "I am not sure we have the volunteer capacity to properly scrutinise the number of paid edits that might appear". This is a proposal to delete content, not add content. In discussions about "paid editing", so far as I know the idea of paying someone to delete copyright violations has never before been proposed. I agree that the Wikimedia community is unlikely to muster volunteer oversight of this paid process, but I doubt that this needs heightened or extra-cautious volunteer oversight because this process seems unlikely to me to cause problems. If it does cause problems, then the problems are trackable. The work process has two parts - the bot flags likely copyright violations with supporting evidence; then the second part is that a paid human deletes content based on that argument. This is already a better process than what typical Wikipedians do, and even if it goes wrong an evidence trail is produced for tracking why it went wrong unlike in the case with typical volunteer checking. In my opinion, this kind of codification and standardization has a lower failure rate than human checking. Why do you feel that the existing process is better for avoiding erroneous deletion and wasting volunteer time? Also, I presume you agree that currently without this bot and paid editor, most copyright violation currently is unexposed, right? Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:40, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Paid editing is potentially editing on an industrial scale. One thing that concerns me is that if it does go wrong, it might go wrong on a very large scale before it is detected, and take a long time for volunteers to put right, even if there is a paper trail.

I have already explained below why I think a paid editor may be more likely to be slapdash than a volunteer. There is also a discussion below as to whether this robot will be able to cope with topics where (unlike medical articles) public domain sources are extensively used, and whether it might generate a lot of false positives. James500 (talk) 08:10, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes the person in question will be supervised and would likely be working 20 hours per week. Not a huge number of edits. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:30, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

James500 I am not going to generally discuss the concept of paid editing. From my perspective, there is a major problem demoralizing the community which has been unaddressed for years. Following that, there has been a solicitation for solutions to the problem. This proposal frames the problem as "there is a lot of rote mindless boring work to do that no one would volunteer to do", "a bot and paid labor could solve the problem", and "no one else for years has proposed another viable solution". I suppose that our conversation is now at an impasse because I evaluate the problem as serious, the history of this bot's work as being a success story, and the addition of a paid manager for the bot as being unlikely to significantly diminish the current rate of good outcomes. If problems arise in other fields then I hope that the bot can be developed to avoid them, perhaps by manually staying out of classes in certain fields, or perhaps by better documenting the oversight process.

If you have ideas for other concessions which the supporters should make, or other ideas for finding grounds for collaboration or discussion, then ping me. You have a valid concern that there are dangers of greatly scaling up automated processes, but I feel compelled to support attempts to try because I see no other hope for relief. I do not know what more to say. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:53, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

a major problem demoralizing the community which has been unaddressed for years, gee, ya think? I can't tell which side of that issue you're on? [19] [20] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:13, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

The links are to a different kind of paid editing which I do not support. There is more than one issue here and I support one and not the other. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:00, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support This is a necessary step in the right direction. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:59, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
• Conditional support, if the payment of the person in question is set up in a trust, so that a contingency is set up if Doc James' is permanently incapacitated, the person would still be paid for a while, and we could find an alternative. Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying 22:47, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

More planning needed. I'm entering this in the "oppose" column not because I think it's a bad idea overall, but because I think something like this should be planned and communicated a bit more extensively. As many of you know, I have deep and abiding respect for Doc James and his work. I have strong personal trust in his diligence and integrity in carrying out a project like this, and do not worry that the direct output of this project would pose any problems.

However, I think we need to keep in mind that Wikipedia is a project built on principles, not on personal trust. An effort like this would be new and bold, and I think we would be foolish to suppose that it won't be cited as precedent in the future. Viewed from that perspective, we have to anticipate that people who do not have Doc James' background will try to do something similar.

So before this step is taken, I consider it very important to clearly and publicly articulate the nature of work these staff will be expected to do, and how disclosure and accountability and related issues will be handled. I have tried to take on similar issues in my own work, and I hope the statement of ethics I have published might be a useful model. (Careful readers will note that it's published under a "ND" license; I am open to changing that if useful.) -Pete (talk) 20:57, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments Pete. This has of course come about because we are struggling with paid editing. Students are here editing and being "paid" by a mark in school.

Profs of course are editing by proxy through their students. Some have even got their students to write nice articles about them here on Wikipedia. Not sure how many remember this persons class Steve Joordens

Issues have occurred. And we now have at least one paid editor User:Ian_(Wiki_Ed) working to clean up the mess. I think this is good. We should however go one step farther and be proactive rather than retroactive. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:55, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Funny how his run-in with Wikipedia, even with multiple reliable traditional media stories, wasn't mentioned anywhere in the article. Anyone care to add that blurb in? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:24, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Doc James I agree, of course -- the whole subject only arises because of "paid editing." That is why I think it is very important that an established and respected Wikipedian like yourself should set a standard that others may follow with confidence and without drama. I'm happy to discuss this stuff in more detail if you like. -Pete (talk) 16:10, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose I think we should try other alternatives first, and certainly not adopt this without a very visible full consensus from including Wikipedians in general, not just those of us with some involvement in the education program. I realize the degree of this problem, and I certainly trust Doc James. but I nonetheless think it a very questionable step, if only because the general trend is apparently in the direction of totally banning paid editing in article space throughout Wikipedia, even if declared. Despite my personal respect for Pete,, I think the involvement of a commercial paid editors in the above discussion indicates the possible dimensions of the problem. (Kevin is a paid WIR, and although this is now an accepted role, even it was initially challenged). DGG ( talk ) 18:22, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

User:DGG we are moving towards banning paid editing were their is a conflict of interest. It is unclear how allowing me to fund someone to remove plagiarism from Wikipedia is a conflict. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:16, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I can think of arguments against paid editing that have nothing to do with conflict of interest. One is that since paid editors are motivated by reward, they may care less about the goals of the project than volunteers, and might be likely to edit in a less diligent and concientious manner than volunteers who are more highly motivated, resulting in edits that are likely to be of inferior quality. IIRC, a book called "Irrationality: The Enemy Within" argues something to the effect that people may perform tasks better when they are not rewarded. James500 (talk) 05:09, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes agree intrinsic motivation is much more powerful than extrinsic motivation especially for highly complicated tasks. Checking for copyright violations and tabulating data around how frequently they occur and what measures could potentially encourage those who make these edits change their ways is; however, fairly monotonous work. I agree there could be issues with quality and that these would need to be looked out for. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:16, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose as too early. This proposal isn't complete: for example, if Doc James is killed by a bus, who manages and pays this paid editor? I think a proposal affecting all articles needs more planning followed by a broader discussion and consensus before it's implemented. There isn't much traffic here (even with notices of discussion having been posted) and so I don't think this is the right place to ensure there's consensus for this proposal.

My other main objection us that if the goal of expanding this bot is to address student copyvios in particular, then I think it would be better to try other methods first. For example, since the bot only compares text with searchable online text, it misses text copied from textbooks and some journal articles. Examining student edits before or right after they're posted would catch those copyvios because an experienced editor familiar with textbook and journal writing styles can recognise that kind of copyvio. Ca2james (talk) 06:11, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Turnitin and thus the bot, examines not just searchable text but a very large range of textbooks, journals and websources. Not sure what "Examining student edits before or right after they're posted" means? Who pays the for this position if I do not? Likely no one. I do not understand how that is an issue. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:05, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

In my mind, if you pay the editor then that editor reports to you instead of the community, and I'm a little uncomfortable with that. Also, if you're incapacitated or killed, what happens to that person? With respect to Turnitin, from what I could find online, it doesn't necessarily include all textbooks - am I wrong about that? I'm not sure what the best way to deal with student copyvios. Obviously student work needs to be checked by someone, and I honestly don't know how to do that. One possibility is to make student edits all pending and then they have to be approved, but that's hugely labour intensive. Another might be to run the bot over only the students' contributions. I'm hesitant to support this proposal because I'm not convinced it's the best solution for the problem of student copyvios. I'd like to see more discussion and more proposals on the issue, if possible. Ca2james (talk) 03:45, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

This editor, if hired, can be warned and blocked just like any other. Thus they will definitely be accountable to the community. If I am killed than it is up to my estate to decide if they wish to keep this person employed.

Sure Turnitin just includes a lot of textbooks. It is not perfect but it is much better than nothing and is how we picked up a bunch of these student issues.

We cannot even get the students to join the education program. How will we tell them apart from other editors for "pending changes"? Many classes operate under the radar. And really all editors should be prevented from copyright infringement.

If someone has a better idea would love to hear it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:58, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

If a significant proportion of copyvios are coming from student assignments, why not forbid students from being "rewarded" with grades in the first place? Would that not remove students who do not want to participate in this project (are they given the option of doing alternative assignments?) and any incentive to "cheat" that grades might produce? James500 (talk) 06:20, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Copyvios occur from none student editors aswell. Both should be dealt with. The issues with students are greater as they were actively encouraged to participate.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:30, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

But would what I suggested reduce the scale of the problem to such an extent that paid editing would be unnecessary? James500 (talk) 02:55, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

If you look at the archives of Eranbot we keep a list of all the issues that have occured. Most have not been due to students. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:35, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I may be misreading this conversation, but I'm puzzled by the whole issue of paid editing. Doc James, would you expect the student you hired to clean up copyvios, or would you be hiring them simply to sort through EranBot's output and separate false positives from true positives? If it's the latter, then they're not editing mainspace at all, are they? Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 06:43, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

If they are picking up issues the hope would be to also have them fix them yes. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:35, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. I am not sure we have the volunteer capacity to properly scrutinise the number of paid edits that might appear, for the purpose of quality control of those edits. James500 (talk) 07:52, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Students are editors paid by a grade. We now have Wiki Ed staff being paid to clean up after them. So what is proposed is already occurring. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:05, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

You propose to hire university students. Does the WikiEducation Foundation hire students? Is there a reason why you could not hire someone who does this sort of thing professionally or has some kind of relevant professional credentials? James500 (talk) 04:07, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes I may not hire a student and this is not a requirement for the position. I was looking at someone part time as I do not have the level of funding that WikiEducation Foundation has. I have no professional qualifications in copyright infringement detection and yet currently I am doing lots of it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:53, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Discuss

• What does the 'Status' column mean? That's unclear. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:55, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

This is the human editor follow up. TP means true positive. Quote means maybe okay. And FP means false positive. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:06, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, that makes sence. The terms true positive and false positive aren't going to be widely understood outside those with experience in experimental design. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:09, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes this bot was launched by WP:MED though :-) We can use better terminology. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:14, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

How about column name "copyvio?" and Yes/no? — Revi 08:17, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Sure Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:18, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

This is MUCH bigger then the education program, this RFC should be at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). — xaosflux ^Talk 16:37, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Especially as this is going to involve paid editors. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:55, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks User:Xaosflux a RfC is posted at the top and I have also posted over at the policy board. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:03, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

@Doc James: Who will be paying these editors, you? Will they be considered your agents as far as edits go? Do we expect them to be eligible to vote/!vote on community issues like RfA's or functionary elections? — xaosflux ^Talk 17:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

The plan would be for me to pay them (but if other organizations are interested in helping I would not complain). If they are a prior editor they will create a new account for this position. This account will just be for reverting "copy violations" and providing feedback on users pages regarding how to avoid further issues in the future. They will not be voting in RfA, or weighting in in other community discussion. They will not be involved with content issues outside of plagiarism. They will produce data for the community at least once a year on the magnitude of the issues detected. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:00, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• More data We have looked at the volumes of flagged edits that will likely occur on a given day. Looking at En Wikipedia as a whole about 3000 edits are of a size that they may be of concern. If the rate of positive returned by Turnitin is the same as for medical articles we are looking at about 375 edits to review per day. So not an unreasonable number. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:49, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Something that is not much of an issue with medical articles but makes up a large part of for example historical British biographies are PD sources. What do you do about filtering (not flagging as a copyright violation) copies from PD sources? Do you for example ignore the content of the Internet Archive and Wikisource? -- PBS (talk) 11:43, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

We are creating a list of sites that the bot ignores. That list can be seen here and is human built. PD sources can be added. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:46, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible to exclude those PD books and journals that Turnitin has scanned into its databases directly from printed sources and not from other websites? (I don't understand how printed sources can be excluded by a blacklist of websites). What about sources that are available under a compatible licence? How does the blacklist cope with sites that contain both PD and copyrighted material in large quantities (such as GBooks)? James500 (talk) 02:55, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

One can exclude all books before a certain date of publication I would imagine. The bot can be tweaked further. Right now it is working fairly well on medical articles. But yes hard to say how will it will work for other types of content.

Most cases of plagiarism are fairly obvious. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:02, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Does the bot have access to pay to view sites such as the ODNB? If so can it tell the difference between a copy from the DNB and the ODNB (which can be (but is not always) derived from the DNB)? Does your bot look at talk pages of article to see if there is a {{backwardscopy}} template (see Backwards copying)? -- PBS (talk) 11:55, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

The bot is ONLY looking at edits made in the last few hours. This is how it prevents large numbers of false positives from occurring. Each edit requires human follow up. The bot is NOT making any edits to main space or user talk pages on its own.

With respect to what the bot has access to, it has access to everything that Turnitin dose. Thus greater than 45 billion webpages and greater than 130 million books and journals. Here it says "Turnitin has partnered with leading content publishers, including library databases, text-book publishers, digital reference collections, subscription-based publications, homework helper sites and books. These partnerships have contributed over 130 million additional articles to our databases." [21] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:46, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

• Question EranBot (the bot in question) is not approved for all of mainspace, so wouldn't the bot need approval before it could be extended? Does the bot need approval to conduct the mainspace tests you're planning? Ca2james (talk) 16:41, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes bot will need approval before it is extended. We are needing further permission from Turnitin and then will apply if it is possible. Will be a few weeks.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:50, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

You've already extended the bot to AfC, though, right? Don't you need approval from the Bot Approvals Group to extend the bot's scope? I have this sense that you're going to just go ahead and do what you want here without going through the formalities. It's unsettling. Ca2james (talk) 17:12, 18 December 2014 (UTC) After a bit of thought, I think I'm focusing too much on process, here, and my interpretations are completely off-base. I know that you want what's best for the project and that you've contributed an amazing amount here. I apologize for suggesting otherwise. Ca2james (talk) 17:30, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

It has been extended to AfC yes. I was not involved with this extension and believe that it was just a test that was requested. I will start the bot approval process for expansion though. I have posted questions here [22] and would appreciate guidance on the correct process. I fully realize that what is proposed is going to take months (maybe 6 or 12 even) to roll out and will occur only if their is community support. If there is support for a paid person to supplement the community involved they will take two to three months to hire. We have meetings with Turnitin next in January and our contact will likely have to discuss with upper management the expanded number of queries we would be sending them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:53, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

• Question There exists a bot checking all of mainspace for copyrights: CorenSearchBot. I realize that the two bots use some different criteria for copyvio detection but their checks overlap. Wouldn't it make more sense to combine the two bots so that each new edit is checked only once instead of duplicating effort and resources? The backlog for CorenSearchBot is also quite long, so wouldn't it make more sense to have a broader discussion on the best bot and reviewer solutions for dealing with copyright? Pinging the existing bot owner Coren to bring them into this. Ca2james (talk) 16:13, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

No this bot does something different. Coren's bot ONLY checks newly created pages. It does not check all of mainspace. Eranbot checks all new edits over a certain size. User:Coren has been involved in the development of the Eranbot. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:52, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

One checks new pages against some criteria and the other checks new changes against Turnitin (and other criteria?). These tasks are just not that different and is splitting them the best choice? I don't think so, because it just adds overhead and is more confusing what with all the report pages and thinking about which bot does what. Ca2james (talk) 17:12, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe User:Coren can also weigh in. With respect to checking new pages I agree that these two tasks are similar. The checking of new difs is not. This was not an addition that I was personally involved with. Maybe User:Ocaasi can provide more details about the checking of AfC. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:39, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

• More data In the last 6 month the bot has help us clean up more than 200 issues with copyright violations within medical articles. When it flags difs more than half the time there are verified concerns. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:23, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Ca2james, it's my fault if the AfC experiment needed bot approval for expansion. I asked User:EranBot to try adapting the tool to that use case and I didn't realize it needed prior approval. If indeed that's so, we are happy to pause the bot and go get the approval. We have wanted to take a very gradual approach with the rollout of this tool and I didn't mean to subvert any processes in doing so. We really were just testing to see if the bot was functional in another namespace. Best, Jake Ocaasi ^{t | c} 19:09, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

It's my understanding that changes in bot scope or bot tasks need to be approved before they're implemented. xaosflux can probably clarify what needs to be done and in what order. Ca2james (talk) 15:52, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Correct, a recent new bot task request was introduced at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/EranBot 2. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:57, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

• I've made a proposal for bot tagging of edits which may be used for suspected copyvios. Cenarium (talk) 12:50, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
• Procedural comment I've added this to WP:CENT since it's a substantial proposal. Although it is now too late, I would have strongly suggested to separate this into two proposals (going global on one hand, hired student on the other) (a BRFA will be needed too). Cenarium (talk) 13:06, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

BRFA is done and is here [23] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:48, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

• I've no objection to this being a paid role, in principle; but I have some questions: Why is this on the education, not a more general noticeboard? What support will be given to new, good-faith editors whose work is reverted? Will the employee's remit include following up question from people whose good-faith edits have been reverted? To what extent? If not, who will undertake that role? How will false positives (copied text from an open-licensed source) be avoided? At the very least, I'd like to see this run for only a short (say two months) trial, then evaluated by the community. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:57, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes I was looking at a 4 month trial but would also be happy with two months.
  • Yes they will follow up on questions from people who have had their edits revert. Most people (90+ %) never respond to concerns though
  • If you look at the output from EranBot at User:EranBot/Copyright you will notice that it gives the sources of concern. These sources are check to determine if they are public domain or CC BY SA / CC BY before the person is notified.
  • Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:58, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Copy and paste bot going Wiki Ed

I'm not sure whether I think think making this bot work across all edits is a good idea — I'm mainly worried about the feasibility of managing that backlog of article that need to be checked — but it's definitely something Wiki Ed is interested in for contributions by student editors. We're planning to develop a plagiarism prevention system that will notify the editor directory (as well as their instructor) whenever possible plagiarism is detected. The main idea is to push the first responsibility for removing plagiarism back to the people responsible for adding it. However, that won't be ready in time for the upcoming term. As a short-term solution, we're going to propose setting up an instance of this bot monitor the articles being edited in courses, which Adam and Ian can keep an eye on.

@Doc James and ערן: FYI, I forked the bot and added the option to check articles based on an on-wiki list of links. Thanks again for your work developing this system! I think it'll be a great starting point for where we'd like to go with plagiarism prevention. The plan for the coming term will be to manually query the database (like this) for all the articles touched by student editors, and compile those on a wiki page that the bot can use.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:40, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

The difficulty is that not all classes are part of Wiki Ed and not all plagiarism issues are from students. In fact the majority are not.

Now that we have the rate of false positives down to less than 50% directly notifying people may be reasonable. My concerns is that notifying editors incorrectly could cause issues. I think we need more data before we start directly notifying people

Also would like further details on how Wik Ed plan to use the bot? Are you planning on checking diffs one by one? How quickly after the edits are made do you plan to check them? Is there going to be a public list of concerns found? Have you applied for bot approval yet? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:03, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

We're interested in checking for, and reverting, plagiarism in articles edited by users in our courses, whether or not it is a student editor who made the bad edit. Even if someone else adds plagiarism, that can lead to a student editor's work being lost if they build on someone else's plagiarism and it can't be easily excised. The plan will be to gather all the usernames from Wiki Ed courses, use a database query to find every article that group of users has edited since the start of the term, and use that list (regularly updated) to check recent diffs. Essentially, it would be the same thing EranBot does now with articles that have {{WikiProject Medicine}} on the talk page, but instead doing that for list of pages (both articles and sandboxes) that student editors have touched, and post the results similarly to how EranBot does (maybe at User:RagesossBot/Copyright). I'm about to make the BAG request.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:17, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

This still doesn't address the issue of non students plagiarizing. The proposal is to have the list of flagged diffs searchable by Wikiproject and by if they are associated with the Education Program.

Sage we need to make sure that we work closely together. It would be disrespectful of Turnitin to run the same edits through their API more than once. If you plan to run the bot on all student edits and we are running it on all medical edits, when students edit medical content how will we prevent the same diff being sent twice? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:32, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

To follow up on the live chat we just had... it'd be great to collaborate and fold this into EranBot. We're interested in checking articles touched by student editors next term, even if EranBot isn't running globally yet at that point, but we can probably figure out how to do that soon without duplicating diffs. I've removed my BAG request in the meantime.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:51, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks User:Sage (Wiki Ed). One bot that does all each of us need IMO is better than multiple bots. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:08, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

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

Name

Carwil Bjork-James

Institution

Vanderbilt University

Course title and description

Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples: on the sovereign, legal, treaty, and human rights of indigenous groups, especially in the Americas. Mostly advanced undergrdauates, one graduate student. The Wikipedia collaboration is one of two principal assignments, along with a course paper which should cover an overlapping topic.

Relevant WikiProjects: WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America; WikiProject Human rights; WikiProject Anthropology; WikiProject Ethnic groups

Number of students

Currently 24 students, with a limit of 30.

Start and end dates

Begins January 5, 2015. Ends May 1, 2015. Wikipedia should wrap up by April 10 (with some extra time for GA follow-up).

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Carwil (talk) 17:32, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I've left a few comments on the draft talk page. John Carter (talk) 22:52, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

@Carwil: Thanks for using the assignment design wizard! I've looked over your course plan, and I'm glad you've already identified several Wiki projects for your students. I also think it's good that you will have your students write an additional paper where they can argue persuasively. This will help them to draw the distinction between writing for Wikipedia and writing for the traditional course paper. I'm going to grant you course instructor rights, and then I will follow up with more information about Wiki Ed's resources. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:16, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Setting term for course?

I'm trying to create a new course page without the use of the wizards (my needs are simple and the wizards confuse me) at Education Program:Northeastern University/Online Communities (2015-1-Spring). Generally looks good except that the course assignment template is specifying "term = 2014 Q3". I don't know where that is coming from, I specified the term in the institution form as "2015-1-Spring" and that is reflected in the name. Can I change this term parameter myself? Is it a default that hasn't been updated for 2015 yet? -Reagle (talk) 15:37, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Reagle: That's coming from the course page text itself. If you go to the course page and click edit, you can change that parameter. (I've done this already.) I'll update the default that gets loaded. Thanks for bringing it up.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:33, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Sage (Wiki Ed) -Reagle (talk) 19:34, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Revoke course instructor right

• Education Program:CUNY,_Hunter_College/Human_Development_(Fall_2014)#Summary_and_students
• User:Cshanesimpson
• Previous incidents with this course, discussed at ENI

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

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

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

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

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

Wow. I didn't see that class :-(

• User:GasparJohn added plagiarism in this edit [24] Dec 3, 2014 from this CC NC paper from [25] it is still in the article a week latter.
• User:A Mandrell added plagiarism Dec 5, 2014 in this edit [26] from [27]
• User:Saminnaqvi added copy and paste July 31 [28] from [29] still in article
• User:Psyduck12 added plagiarism per [30]

And that didn't take long to find. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:20, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Doc James, I took care of the Midlife crisis and Institute_of_Company_Secretaries_of_India issues. Very tedious. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 05:18, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• Unfortunately revoking the right does little but make them harder to track. If action is needed, it's going to either need to be a class massblock or massrollback, but of which I would support if the situation is bad enough. Kevin Gorman (talk) 06:31, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm with User talk:Kevin Gorman on this. They should be treated like any other group to people who're misusing wikipedia for their own ends. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:41, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

What is the position of these

• User:Psych150wiki adds with quotes in place "Twenty-one men receiving ADT for metastatic prostate cancer underwent a qualitative interview focusing on the adverse effects of ADT and the impact of these symptoms on daily living and coping strategies. Results: The most frequently mentioned adverse effects were hot flashes and night sweats, gynecomastia, cognitive decline, and changes in sexual function. Hot flashes did impact on everyday functioning, and night sweats regularly disturbed sleep patterns and led to participants feeling tired and irritable. Participants reported a lack of control over their hot flashes and night sweats. There was reluctance among our sample to disclose the type of symptoms experienced to others. Conclusion: The occurrence of andropause symptoms, including hot flashes and night sweats, was common among this sample. Participants reported a range of cognitive and behavioral responses to these symptoms."[31]

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

• Hi, User:Doc James. This is a problem, although I personally consider of a different factor than copy-pasting without quotation marks. In this case, we most likely have somebody who is in all good faith intending to do the right thing. Inexperienced writers often do this - instead of paraphrasing content properly and using limited quotations to support their work, they see useful information and copy it from their sources. You see it a lot in lowerclassmen. It is a copyright problem, particularly as it becomes extensive, and people have been blocked for this kind of thing, although I'm happy to say that's pretty rare. Generally, this is a matter of education - I'm fond of this handout from Purdue University and the related handout on paraphrasing. The point to emphasize there is that quotations should be used sparingly; the bulk of our contributions should be in our own words. A lot of naive writers are frustrated by our inability to give them a word count, which is understandable. It would be lovely if we could. :/ Depending on how extensive the issue is, I will sometimes simply flag an article Template:Non-free and explain the problem on the talk page. If a significant portion of the article is made up of such content, reversion or immediate trimming may be best. Rarely, if there is no clean version, pages are blanked with Template:Copyvio. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks Moonriddengirl. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:10, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Doc, with respect to the edit from User:Psych150wiki, quoting extensively from an article abstract is a possible tipoff to a bigger problem. It's possible the student did not have access to the full-text of the journal article, and is inserting text based only on an abstract, which is rarely a good thing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• I've also noticed edits related to this course that are sloppy to the point of vandalism here [32] and here [33]. It looks to me like they're getting graded based on words changed or something, as one of the students, User:Ziggapedia92, seems to have gone through Neurotransmitter and replaced random words with synonyms from a thesaurus. While most of these edits just make the article unclear, most are far worse, such as replacing the medical condition "depression" with "down in the dumps", changing "certain types of neurotransmitters" to "convinced types of neurotransmitters" (while "convinced" could be a synonym for one meaning of "certain", it's not a synonym for that meaning), changing "little or no effect" to "petite or no end product", and generally making a perfectly good article read like a bad Google Translate translation. --166.20.224.12 (talk) 18:21, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Noticed ANI, since sysop actions are not the domain of this board: [34] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:31, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

To address the concerns of the community, I apologize for any sloppy edits that were made as my students ended the semester. At this point, the Wikipedia assignment portion of the course has ended. Even with consistent supports put in place via in-class workshops, hand-out's, etc., some of my students veered from the course assignment. They were not graded on word count, nor were they even graded on whether their revisions (coming out of shared, in-class editing documents) "stuck" on Wikipedia. Please be advised that I am working closely with members of the Wiki Education Foundation to amend these issues, but will continue to monitor student pages in an effort to clean-up these problems. As a result of those major issues this semester, I do not plan to teach my course with a Wikipedia assignment in a class of this size and will likely not be using Wikipedia (for coursework) again for another 2 years. On a side note, professors often attend workshops held at the university to support training of new editors on Wikipedia. This is not meant to train us, but to support further development of the online community.Cshanesimpson (talk) 22:53, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• I still have the means to generate a listing of student edits like Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Indian Education Program. Please let me know if you want me to do this. MER-C 03:09, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Support rollback

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

• Support mass rollback of all these students edits. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:43, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support mass rollback of all these students edits, since all methods of communication have failed. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support mass rollback of all these students edits. please Jytdog (talk) 07:02, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support rollback. Not seeing any snowball of opposition here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 07:12, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• well, yes ... of course, after the Education Program staff goes through the contribs from about 100 students and produces a list of articles affected, since the prof and students never even completed a course page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support The time for half measures has passed. Ban the whole lot. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:03, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support makes sense to do --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 19:13, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support. That is how Wikipedia works. Make edits that are disputed, and they will likely be reverted. If you want the edits restored, go to talk. If you don't go to talk, the edits will probably not be restored. And reverting the edits is the smart way to do it. Revoking instructor rights or blocking instructors from editing do not accomplish anything good for Wikipedia. That just makes classes harder to keep track of. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:12, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Don't have too much to add but that this should be done quickly. --L235-Talk Ping when replying 00:00, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Doc James, agree with L235 that this should be done quickly. Who is going to do this rollback across hundreds of accounts and undetermined articles? The Education Program has not produced a list of articles affected. Has the course page been filled in? I think HJ Mitchell has a script or bot that can be used; perhaps he knows how this can be accomplished. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:05, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Sandy - admins have a mass nuke function that rolls back all possible edits from an account, and there is a list of students seemingly at least. It wouldn't get all issues since especially with folks working to correct articles many edits couldn't be simply rolled back, but if this closes as massrollback (which certainly looks likely atm) it would be a good start to the process at least. Kevin Gorman (talk) 11:16, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see the course page has been filled in now. So, should we get on with the rollback? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:19, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Sandy, Kevin, you migt be conusing two different things. There's Special:Nuke, which does what it says on the tin (put a username in an ad it will delete every page created by that account in the last 30 days), and there's a script (User:John254/mass rollback.js), which will allow you to revert every edit made by a given editor that is still the most recent revision—the effect is the same as clicking each individual "rollback" link, but it only takes one click. Best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:57, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh, there's also a mass block script. I'm more accustomed to using it on sockfarms and serious abusers, but if a mass block was desired here, it would do the job. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:02, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

So, it sounds like unless student edits are the last revision on a given article, we may be too late already for nuking them? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:08, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

If somebody else has edited the page since the student, you won't be able to rollback the edit; you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way I'm afraid. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:50, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Adam, Ian and I (as User:Ragesoss) have been going through all the articles edited by this course and cleaning up problems introduced by the student editors. I think we have about 6 more articles (Neurotransmitter, Egocentrism, Zone of proximal development, Andropause, Substance abuse prevention, and Eating disorder) that we aren't finished checking. I'm guessing we'll finished up with those on Monday.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:34, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose With approx. 5 diffs, I don't think it has been adequately laid out that this is necessary . There are other options to solve the problem. (Tell the students to fix it themselves and tag their copyvios for deletion themselves, for example). You would be reverting many, many good edits.--^Melody _Lavender 15:41, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• The course is over, students are not going to be fixing their edits. In spite of years requesting evidence, there has never yet been presented to me an example of students staying around after term-end. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:43, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
  • I worked with a small group in a class a few years back, and one of them stuck around as an occasional editor for about six months afterwards (in the same account: if they edit logged-out or in a new account, it's impossible to track them).
    Reverting editors (rather than building on their work) and leaving mean notes on their talk pages are proven ways to drive new editors away, so it's not surprising that we don't see many stick around. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
    • That is a good point WAID. On the other hand, the structure of the situation lends itself to very bad interactions. At the end of the semester, scads of procrastinating students post badly done edits to mainspace as they have grades on the line. WP:NODEADLINE is out the window, on the individual student side, and their COI is front and center. And the editors in the trenches are working like crazy to get bad content out of mainspace, all over the place. Doesn't lend itself to quality edits being made, nor to calm and considered interactions on either side. Jytdog (talk) 16:11, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
    • WAID has her N=1 sample, I have mine (and many many more). That we are chasing them off is one of the PERENNIAL arguments in these discussions. I invite you to peruse klazomania and the ridiculously extensive editing I had to do to salvage something there on an insanely obscure topic about which there are no sources and for an article which gets basically no pageviews[35]-- mentoring, guiding, and talk page interaction between me and the students (on the article talk page and on the student talk pages), resulting in a better than decent article and good interaction with the students ... and show me one of them that has returned ? I have more examples. This argument is not representative of what we deal with or how we deal with student editing, and is a factual distraction. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
      • The whole point of a mass rollback is that I do not have the time to go through every edit to check it for copyright violations
      • More or less the rest of them should be reverted as they either use large quotes or primary source. Others have broken the references of the pages in question. User talk:Melody Lavender are you offering to fix all these edits? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:07, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
        • As I mentioned on the other thread, Wiki Ed staff is going through these contributions today and cleaning up content, since it's a class we supported. You can watch progress on Ian's and Adam's contributions pages. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:18, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
          • • Are you fixing refs, capitalization, removing large quotes, and removing primary sources as well? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:03, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
            • What about changes like [36] and [37] that are making the article read like a bad Google Translate translation? --166.20.224.12 (talk) 18:21, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
              • Lovely. Poor IP166 and @Seppi333: in there dealing with huge numbers of poor edits from more than half a dozen students, who have them outnumbered, for months (all the way back to October.) As if Seppi has nothing better to do with his/her time. This is classic. Then the article will be fixed, and Melody Lav can say the students could have written it.

                Wikipedia has always been a train wreck, but the Education Program is making the internet suck even more. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:59, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

                • Wow. The whole Internet or just the WWW? That is a lot of suck! HullIntegrity (talk) 00:28, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Images

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

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

And another from same prof

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

• Education Program:CUNY, CUNY Graduate Center/ITP Core 2 (Spring 2014) ^{Education Program talk:CUNY, CUNY Graduate Center/ITP Core 2 (Spring 2014)/support}
• Theredproject Msmale, Cshanesimpson, Pharos, Mozucat

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

Found one article: Now You See It (Cathy Davidson book). Anyone find a Conflict of Interest declaration for that ? There is not one on article talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:11, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

And that COI article was added with one edit from this sandbox (shall I note that most of those editors have not returned to Wikipedia, in spite of none of the unpleasant interference that is frequently alleged in here? As far as I can tell, no one even pointed out the COI or took them to the COINoticeboard.)

• Can anyone access the full text of this Scientific American review, which is not mentioned in the article?
• This review (not included in the article), includes some critical commentary also neglected.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Another proposal

• @SandyGeorgia: Hi Sandy, read your concerns and I agree with them. I am curious why there is not an edit filter set up to tag edits of course students so that a recent changes filter can be set up like we currently have for new editor edits, IP edits, and new pages at Special:RecentChanges. Wouldn't this go a long way to supervising these edits?--v/r - TP 23:00, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Great suggestion, TParis. Anyone have an answer? Where might we take this query next? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:49, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• I, too, think that this is an excellent idea. Perhaps it should be proposed at Village Pump, Technical, or perhaps someone from WMF watching here could get it going. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:52, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• I am not an EF guru but have played around with the education extension and how students are flagged enough to think this needs code changes. Because students aren't actually assigned to a usergroup (which I think would be a good idea to do for many reasons,) building EF type stuff that targets them is hard currently. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:57, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Unfortunately, WMF hasn't been able to put development resources into EducationProgram extension for quite some time, so a lot of the things I'd like to see happen with course pages to make it easier to keep track of what student editors are doing haven't gotten past the idea stage yet. In the medium term, Wiki Ed plans to build a better system to replace the EducationProgram extension. For now, unless a volunteer dev writes a patch, we're unlikely to see much improvement to the extension.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:00, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
  • EducationProgram extension wouldn't need a change. Just need to create a new usergroup in the LocalSettings.php.--v/r - TP 00:04, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

  How would this work? Manually assigning all students the "student" usergroup? --L235-Talk Ping when replying 00:07, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

  We already do it for OTRS volunteers. Only until an automatic fix can be engineered when time is available.--v/r - TP 00:19, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

  Maybe it could be done by a bot when the bot adds a student welcome template to their talk page? Stuartyeates (talk) 00:24, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

  Hmm... Maybe simply a new conditional on wg.autopromoteonce. --L235-Talk Ping when replying 00:56, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

  Perhaps Template:Welcome student and Template:Welcome medical student could automatically assign a user category when they are placed on the user's talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:03, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• I posted about these various ideas at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 132#Discussion about education program issues. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:47, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
• One of my main problems with this is that it's not clear how useful this information will even be. I would guess that the low-quality contributions are mostly going to be confined to the topics covered in the class (which, if the class is set up well enough that a bot can tag them as students, it should have the topics covered anyway), since that's where people who may not have any inclination or experience editing Wikipedia would make changes. I don't think there's a rash of students making low-quality extra-curricular edits, and in fact we want these students to stick around and edit other articles, but if they do that, they're flagged "student" until someone bothers to untag them.

Maybe it would be useful to have a bot collect all edits from the students listed in the classes on the articles listed in the class. That way, when the class is over, the students are just like any other new editor on Wikipedia. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 00:47, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

If there are any, one or two students who have ever stuck around after term-end, no one has ever produced any evidence of that happening. I mean none at all-- much less in any significant number. There is one post on this page about a student who stuck around briefly after term-end. And the flag can be removed. In the meantime, knowing when a class is editing will be very helpful on patrol. What happens more often in my editing sphere is that I find two or three classes editing an article during the same term! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:51, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think this is something where anecdotal evidence is going to do much good. The fraction of people who edit vs. read Wikipedia is already miniscule. The fraction of people who make a few edits vs. do a lot of high quality work is miniscule as well. Even if participation in WikiEd made people 3x more likely to become long-term editors, I think you'd still expect to have a situation where a room full of people couldn't remember it happening once.

Either way, even if no one sticks around (and you'd have to posit that WikiEd actually makes people less likely to stick around, since by random chance you'd get some long term editors taking Wikipedia-based classes anyway), I can't imagine that we'd be happy enough with that situation that we'd want to design features that reinforce it. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 01:04, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oh and to clarify, I wasn't saying that we shouldn't do anything to try and track students, just that I don't know if flagging their accounts is the best way to go. I'd personally prefer something based on the class structure rather than their account. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 01:08, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• @0x0077BE: some of the problems that have been cropping up include the non-existence of a course page due to the instructor not working within the program, combined with the difficulties editors can have in finding all the pages where student edits need to be cleaned up. It would be great to have tools that can be used even if there is no available information about the class structure. In fact, classes where there is a course page are generally easier to deal with than are classes where the page does not exist, so cases without an identified class are actually where the need for new tools is the greatest. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:27, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• @Tryptofish: Sure, but this proposal doesn't address that, because it pre-supposes that we can identify the students, which means that it pre-supposes a well-populated class page anyway. Are there a large volume of classes where we can identify the students and nothing else about the class, such as its duration or scope? Even then, I'd still say it's important to auto-expire the tags after a certain amount of time. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 22:39, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• @0x0077BE: In fact, I can give you a very recent example of exactly that. Please see Talk:Depolarization#New class project and Talk:Ion channel linked receptors#Class project. These are both pages where there have been student edits that I'm going to end up having to clean up after. In both cases, the students made the edits at the talk page that you see in my links, but I reformatted them and added the tag after they did. In both cases, the students noted at the talk page so soon before they massively revised the page itself, that there was no time for other editors to interact with them. In both cases, I put Template:Welcome student on their talk pages, but they never returned to Wikipedia to see it, after they edited the pages. And in both cases, they refer to the "user name" of their instructor, even though no such user account exists, and they name their university, even though no current class project exists for that university. (It sounds like the students actually did have some understanding of Wikipedia, more so than the instructor did.) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:53, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• Any set-up put into place to "lock down" or "flag" student accounts will just inspire professors to edupunk it or not bother with Wikipedia at all. If you make it more difficult for me, I will not be back; with my students or myself. My job is already hard enough. I love Wikipedia the messy way. I am now, at the end of the semester, editing all 42 of my students' articles (as well as many others). That is my job as a teacher. Let me do it. Do not punish all professors and students because a few are annoying you. I am much more annoyed by random silly vandalism than good faith edits. HullIntegrity (talk) 02:05, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

• What is "edupunking"? (Actually, I'd rather not know.) This isn't about placing a badge of shame. It's about keeping track so that problems can be repaired, and not spiral out of control. HullIntegrity, it seems to me that if some instructors don't want to follow the simple and common sense approach of working within the education program, then maybe their not "bothering" with Wikipedia at all would be the best outcome for their students, as well as for us here. And, everyone else, please note what HullIntegrity said: "My job is already hard enough." That is very much the state of mind of many instructors (I speak from personal experience), and it doesn't make them bad people, just human beings in a flawed higher education system. This goes very much to the circumstances that give rise to the class projects that present problems to us, the ones in which the instructors don't cooperate. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:31, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

• See Edupunk. I have quite a bit of sympathy for HullIntegrity's comments here. And I see no reason why all instructors should go through the Education Program set-up. It's certainly no guarantee of success, as we can see. More to the point, as I've also often said, we need more and more creative ways of using Wikipedia, not an ever-proliferating set of would-be technical fixes. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:33, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
• Please please do not affix instructors with a "We need to watch them!" flag, sign, star, bar-code, tattoo. I honestly am really really shocked this idea is pulling any traction at all.HullIntegrity (talk) 19:35, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oh, for goodness sake, nobody is looking to tattoo anybody, or to shame them, or to make them second-class editors. For what little it is worth, I was for a very long time a university professor myself. I, too, very much understand how it can feel like teaching a class is hard enough not to want any additional complications. But, when we have classes showing up where the instructor is not cooperating with Wikipedia editing norms (and there is a thread at ENI right now about a class where there are copyright violations, biased editing of the instructor's (and her husband's) own biography pages, and a course page that encourages students to work together to defeat attempts by other Wikipedia editors to edit those pages), there comes a point where being able to identify the pages that students have been editing, identify the instructor, and be able to communicate constructively with the instructor is hardly a matter of tattooing anyone. It even becomes a situation where established editors can feel like: editing here is hard enough without all this. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:21, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

• Apologies, but just no. I feel that even thinking in that direction is not healthy for Wikipedia. The relationship between academe and Wikipedia is already so hostile that to burden those who try to work with Wikipedia--in any way--would be very unfortunate in the log run. HullIntegrity (talk) 21:30, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

• I'm sorry that you feel that way. I really am. I've done enough teaching myself to know that it will ultimately be the students who end up having bad experiences if the editing community does not find constructive ways to engage with instructors. It's no fun for a student to find her or himself on Wikipedia with a bunch of editors reverting or objecting to the student's edits, without any proper preparation from a teacher who cannot be bothered to anticipate how Wikipedia works. Maybe you just haven't seen enough cases of class projects gone wrong, but I have. If an instructor thinks there is educational value in experiencing Wikipedia editing, then the instructor should work within Wikipedia norms as they actually exist, and there need to be ways to communicate with the instructor when there is a problem. If that does not interest the instructor, then that instructor should question what educational purpose they have in sending their students here. The Wiki Ed Program is not hostile, but editors who are pissed off at a class project that works outside the system might very well be. What we are discussing here will reduce hostility, not increase it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:46, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

• My 42 students created 42 articles. None are plagiarized. All are cited. Some are not so good. Then, 90% of everything in existence is not so good. I will edit every single article over my winter break. They will be a little better. Some teachers are not as skilled as me at tech stuff. Some do not care as much as me about Wikipedia. That is a fact. That will always be the case. But if this kind of anti-academic, anti-teacher rhetoric continues here and becomes policy on Wikipedia then teachers like me will leave and you will be left with those other ones--and they will continue to do what they want anyways. HullIntegrity (talk) 22:01, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

• As an outsider looking in on this discussion can I ask everyone to look at the long term objectives of encouraging newbies to join us in this project. It is the nature of the game that everyone has enfuriating set-backs whether they are the newbie- or those who are Wikihouseholdnames. I think that this a matter of conflicting philosophies between those who are dedicating themselves to widening the francise put still have long term hopes, and those who are overworked sorting out the 'trainwreck'. But we can't contract, we haven't the capacity-HullIntegrity is right: we have to remain welcoming and resist the urge to punish and regulate. Step back, analyse the failure and add more appropriate support mechanisms.

Research shows us we have totally failed in converting students into editors- which either says they are doing something wrong or we are doing something wrong. The consistency of the results tell us that it is us. Apart from the observation that it was really three years from making my first tentative edits to really starting Wikiediting in earnest- I will be interested to compare our conversion rate on the five, ten and twenty year evaluations. But looking at the results from a secondary teachers perspective rather than a tertiary lecturers perspective I am mildly amused that anyone expects such top-down driven prescriptive structure would be applicable to inducting editors into a world where bottom up motivation is the driving force. I am surprised that someone hasn't jumped in to tell HullIntegrity to take a break, and not to do 42 corrections over Xmas, and come back fresh in January. I am surprised that someone hasn't said- "I have a class of students in January, if it helps I could get them to cooperate in editing these texts- I will show them how to check for copyvios and correct them for you. Be bold- chill out a little and see what we can do help the incompetent editor improve. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 23:35, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

• My new semester does not begin until March, so I have built-in editing time. But thank you, ClemRutter for the sentiments. I think that was well stated. HullIntegrity (talk) 23:46, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Research shows us we have totally failed in converting students into editors- which either says they are doing something wrong or we are doing something wrong. The consistency of the results tell us that it is us. Not only is there no evidence for that statement, there is plenty of evidence against it. Even at its most successful (with Jbmurray's classes that produced several FAs, with immense amounts of support from established Wikipedians), students have not been interested in staying on. What we have now is rampant copyvio, poor sourcing, unintelligible essays, profs "claiming" to check for copyvio who clearly don't even know what it is (see recent incident at WP:ENI), and COI with profs pushing pet agendas. Yes, we must flag student edits so they can be checked. They are paid editors, with a COI. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:40, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

• Practically speaking, I have 200 students a year at computer terminals under my supervision for 4 hours per week each for 13 weeks. I do not think that interaction with Wikipedia is feasibly controllable by anyone but me and my particularly efficient on-site Wikipedia Liaison and our City Admin. I LOVE working with Wikipedia! I do everything by the book as much as I can and apologize when I make mistakes (and I do and learn). Reference: edupunk which is a Wikipedia inspired movement. That will be my last comment on this thread (<--a blatant lie). I am off to edit articles on children's literature written by my students who think that working for Wikipedia is the best thing ever and are so proud of what they have done. HullIntegrity (talk) 02:29, 23 December 2014 (UTC) Clarification: If Wikipedia starts flagging student edits, I will have 200 student editors per year under that radar. I really do not think Wikipedia wants to go there. It makes no sense whatsoever. HullIntegrity (talk) 02:35, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I had 16 4th year medical students a couple of months ago. Yes it can work some. One just needs to figure out who is going to do the follow up / QA before they begin. If this is not in place than things often fall apart. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:30, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I just want to flag this as an important discussion between HullIntegrity, SandyGeorgia, and Tryptofish (among others). Sadly it's likely to get lost on a messageboard such as this. I hope that LiAnna (Wiki Ed) and Jami (Wiki Ed) and other staff and boardmembers of the Education Program are watching. There are fundamental philosophical differences at stake here, and these are the kinds of issues we should be collectively thinking about strategically. As I've often said, moreover, I think such discussions best take place face to face. Let's call it a COI/surveillance summit. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 03:05, 23 December 2014 (UTC) Outdent! I will meet anyone anytime for an F2F especially if it is called a COI/surveillance summit. :) HullIntegrity (talk) 05:12, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Jbmurray that this discussion is really something about which the Wiki Ed people ought to be thinking. But I'm also appalled that one editor here would accuse me of "this kind of anti-academic, anti-teacher rhetoric". I am an academic! The editors who see this as an issue of failing to welcome and retain new student editors are missing the point, to the extent of WP:IDHT. The proposals here are about improving our abilities to communicate with students and instructors (something that is particularly needed when a single instructor is responsible for 200 students). We have too much anti-Wikipedia, anti-consensus rhetoric going on here. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:09, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I apologize to Tryptofish. I did not intend to accuse any individual of anything. HullIntegrity (talk) 15:40, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! I really do mean it when I say that improving communication with class projects should be a good thing, and that having better tools for communicating would be helpful, and would not be a subterfuge for treating student editors or instructor editors shabbily. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:49, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

@Jbmurray: We're absolutely paying attention to it and thinking on it. In terms of the "COI/surveillance summit", who do you see as being the attendees? Could this be incorporated into m:WikiConference USA next year? --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:51, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

• If the extension can't be modified to tag student edits, then I'd suggest pushing for a bot tagging of edits, which would have much wider use and so attract more devs. I've started brainstorming on this at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 15#Bot tagging of edits, for now I need as much examples of potential uses as possible before making the proposal. (Also, the editnotice on this board is very irritating. I wrapped it in a span id, and it can now be hidden by adding #edn-edu-board { display: none } in one's common.css.) Cenarium (talk) 10:58, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• @Cenarium: the reason for the edit notice is that there is a very chronic problem with editors who have zero previous edits showing up here and applying for user rights that are extreme cases of WP:NOTNOW, and it becomes quite a chore for those of us who watch the noticeboard. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:27, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• Yeah I understand, I just don't like blinking things and think that it should only be used in exceptional cases, but in this case I can see why it's necessary. Cenarium (talk) 00:15, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Data from Fall 2014 ENI and ENB reports

HullIntegrity and ClemRutter, here's some data from this term's ENB and ENI reports. It would be nice if someone would expand the chart to include the number of articles and students with copyvio, poor sourcing, deleted articles, COI, etc. I have included Jbmurray's (atypical) experience as a sample, and HullIntegrity for further illustration. I hope the trend is apparent, and I hope something will be done about profs trying to teach students to edit Wikipedia, when they don't do it themselves.

Hull and Clem, you haven't given any good reason why flagging your "good" student contribs would detract from their work, when there is plenty of evidence why tracking the "bad" coursework is needed.

Further, to my knowledge, Jbmurray has never produced one student who stayed on to edit Wikipedia long-term or after the course ended; have either of you? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:06, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I am still seeing a few student edits on articles and the semester is over and the grades are in. I encourage students to create new accounts if they want to continue on Wikipedia after the semester is over so that they are not consistently tagged as "students". The other edits I see could be them. Or not. The edits could be by anyone. The articles produced by my students are being edited pretty much like any others in the categories I work with. As far as research goes, I do not think we should be looking at individuals (or accounts) but at long-term trends. Furthermore, I am not trying to convert my students into Wikipedians, nor will I ever do so, so the recurring argument for that as a goal is irrelevant to me. I am helping my students through the process of learning basic research, concise writing, and responsibility in a public (written) forum. HullIntegrity (talk) 20:34, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I also have one former student who is now a Wikipedia Admin. But I cannot verify that for anyone since I had a previous account and so did she. The point being: we cannot track what is being asked here. You can only "track" students with professor and student "buy in". They literally need to self identify, so you need a carrot there. HullIntegrity (talk) 20:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Education Program professor stats, Fall 2014 reports

Prof	Reg. date	Article contribs	Total contribs	Highest edited article	Notes/ENB/ENI
Jbmurray [38]	2007-04-15	9,588	19,660	Mario Vargas Llosa (248)	3 FAs, 11 GAs
HullIntegrity [39]	2012-08-27	1,024	2,554	PMAI (129)
Agelaia [40]	2012-02-01	35	80	Her husband David C. Queller (5)	Copyvio checks needed
Benkarney [41]	2011-09-22	0	6	None	Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Incidents/Archive 4#Good Articles for Grades
BrooklynProf [42]	2014-07-10	0	5	None	Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Incidents/Archive 3#I simply don.27t know
Cshanesimpson [43]	2014-01-29	3	73	None	Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Incidents/Archive 3#I simply don.27t know Revoke course instructor right
Gdawgme [44]	2011-06-01	54	100	Arsenate-reducing bacteria (6)	Followup on PMID issues
Jlehrcalpoly [45]	2013-07-17	0	136	None	Cal Poly Course
NeuroJoe [46]	2009-06-24	13	375	None	Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Incidents/Archive 3#I simply don.27t know Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Archive8#Prof NeuroJoe
ProfDRS [47]	2014-09-10	0	0	None	Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Archive8#Student editors
Virginia.clinton [48]	2014-08-06	0	10	None	Women in psych

Just want to flag here that Wiki Ed supported 98 courses taught by 89 unique instructors in fall 2014; you've listed 9 of those 89 instructors above. That means classes taught by 80 people (the vast majority of whom also have few mainspace edits) didn't have problems flagged on the Noticeboard. Does that mean every class didn't have problems? Absolutely not -- the students are new editors, and they make mistakes sometimes. But it's not fair to our program to draw conclusions from incomplete data. We've worked with nearly 600 classes now, and there's nothing in our experience that suggests a correlation between quality of student work and number of mainspace edits from the instructor. At the end of the day, the instruction on how to edit, what important policies are, etc., is coming from Wiki Ed and not the instructor. Would it be awesome if all of our instructors were as experienced as Jbmurray? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that instructors without his level of experience can't also have assignments that help Wikipedia. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:40, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback.

First, I would like to see Wiki Ed staff start producing some data for accountability; that I had to take hours to do a partial analysis of only what has been posted on these noticeboards says something about staff work and not me.

Second, it certainly is valid to use data from the reports on these noticeboards to indicate that almost every course that has been the subject of an ENI or ENB report has an inexperienced or completely MIA prof (in stark contrast to Jbmurray's editing history, as an example). And that is an issue that needs Wiki Ed attention.

Wiki Ed staff needs to either stop granting instructor rights to profs who know nothing of Wikipedia, or monitor those courses much more closely, or require more extensive training and up-front editing in article, talk and Wikipedia space from those profs before granting them the right to abuse other editors as TAs and use fill one of the world's most prominent websites with copyvio and unintelligible essays and term papers. Your (that is, Wiki Ed, not "you" LiAnna) training is inadequate, your supervision is inadequate, and your understanding of the negative impact this has in here is deficient.

... there's nothing in our experience that suggests a correlation between quality of student work and number of mainspace edits from the instructor. There's not a lot in your combined experience, period, about actual content building, and since Wiki Ed has never produced data on the topic, neither is there evidence to back your statement about your "experience".

This sort of shrugging off by staff of the very clear negative impact this program has had on content and on established editors is what leads to the need for, well, everything long-evidenced on this board, leading to Jbmurray's call for a conference on the topic. Jbmurray knows what he's doing; paying attention to him would help us all. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:59, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

LiAnna, this is probably a good moment to look back at how this particular discussion evolved. It began with a proposal to have either an edit filter or something akin to it, to be better able to keep track of student edits in order to improve communication between established editors and students or instructors. As the discussion went along, it metastasized into a discussion about whether or not established editors are anti-academic (now resolved amicably) and Sandy, very appropriately, brought forth this information to illustrate that there really are some class projects that become problems. I think you know me as someone who is not inclined to beat up on Wiki Ed. This really isn't (or shouldn't be) about concluding that all Wiki Ed classes are bad, and I don't think Sandy said that. The point is that some of them are bad, and we need better tools to deal with them. This is a good opportunity for established editors and Wiki Ed to work together, towards having better infrastructure for communicating with instructors when things are starting to go wrong, because then, we may be able to get things to go better, and that's a good outcome for the students and for Wikipedia. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:24, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you, Tryptofish, and we're working on how to do things differently next term, including better staff monitoring of courses. I'm sorry I can't go back and make last term better; all I can do is work with my team to make sure processes and tools are in place to have a better term this spring, as I've already committed to doing. Exactly how we'll be doing that is something my team is working on figuring out now. @SandyGeorgia: I encourage you to check out the full data sets on article quality improvement from student editors in our program here: Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Research/Article quality/Results. In Spring 2012, we hired outside researchers who looked for correlations between a series of "course factors" (including amount of editing experience the instructor had) and the quality of content from the student editors (as evaluated by Wikipedia editors). There were no statistically significant correlations between instructor experience editing and quality of content student editors produced. I'm not in any way trying to shake off your negative experiences; obviously, we had some problems, as I've acknowledged, and I remain committed to working to improve our resources, processes, and tools. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:31, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Is it not a bit silly (or perhaps something else, but I'll AGF) to put up outdated, partial data (small sample) that supports something that I have just shown to be wrong? This term, every course we had an incident report on had an absent professor. Period. Problem identified, something we should be working on rather than denying.

I'm glad you're committed to progress, but denying where the problems are occurring won't lead to progress. Your data also doesn't help my N= "way more than 1" sample. In four years, there has never been student improvement to one of the scores of articles that are hit on my watchlist every term, unless *I* did the improving myself. Instead, there has been tons of TAing and mentoring and guiding for no returning students.

Now, this latest round of conversation came about because a) I ventured outside of my regular editing field, to use the Wiki Ed Tasks to see if I could help somewhere else. And in the first instance, that led me straight to three instances of copyvio and a pretty shocking COI (the Agalaia links above). That's my data. And b) Hull and Clem denied that there is a need for better tools to track student edits. Thanks for not ignoring the impact this program has on regular editors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:40, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia I intended to say that any proposal to track students and professors will not work, unless you have buy-in, since they have to self-identify. And I, for one, am very protective of my students while they are under my tutelage, so I might not "buy-in" to the tracking. Does that make sense? HullIntegrity (talk) 17:47, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Your students' edits are tracked anyway; Education Program:CUNY, LaGuardia Community College/Caldecott and Newbery Medals Project (Fall 2014). It just makes less work for everyone else if they are flagged, and it will also direct any other editors more quickly to you. I cannot figure out how this is a bad thing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:34, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, Hi. In what sense are a student's edits tracked? In a different way than everyone else (since all our edits tracked through contributions)? As mentioned elsewhere, I'd want to see all their edits shown as a group, for a given date (range) or given article(s), so I could assess and respond to their edits in a consolidated way (e.g., to grade an assignment). Thanks. ProfGray (talk) 15:05, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia My students are tracked. Yes. Because I choose to allow them (and me) to be tracked. The discussion seemed to be turning to some sort of "automatic" tracking of all students indicating some sort of required registration. HullIntegrity (talk) 14:44, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

That's something that I don't understand either. HullIntegrity, I get the sense that you see "tracking" as some sort of negative labeling, as opposed to as a way to reduce the number of steps needed for communication. Is there something in the way that some of us have presented the idea that creates this unintended perception? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:47, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Asking again, in case it got overlooked. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:03, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Tryptofish Sorry. Missed that the first time. I do not feel a need for improved communication with Wikipedia other than continuing to learn. I have a sense that the instructors you want to communicate better with do not want to communicate back and that is a problem that cannot be solved without changing some fundamentals about Wikipedia. HullIntegrity (talk) 14:44, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

No problem; this discussion has become quite a wall of text. I partially take your point that some of the worst-case instructors really do not want to communicate. To the extent that it's true, and sadly it sometime is true, then that's disruptive. If any regular editor (not education-affiliated) were to be involved in edits that were disputed by other editors and then refused to communicate when those other editors tried to discuss the edits, that editor would come to be seen as tendentious. Being an instructor does not give anyone a special pass. But I also firmly believe that many students and instructors alike will respond positively to feedback from other editors, so long as they actually receive that feedback in a timely manner (before they have left the site). That is "continuing to learn". The facts remain that better infrastructure for communication is not a matter of negative labeling, and that it does not create any additional burden for students or instructors. It just reduces some burdens for other editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:45, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Tryptofish I get it. Obviously some instructors are giving assignments I would never ever consider making and that seem of questionable merit, to say the least, and a huge waste of time for all involved at the worst. I suppose I am jaded after working in learning communities for years and telling colleagues their assignments are plagiarism magnets and they just ignore me. Ergo why make rules for the ones who follow the rules already? HullIntegrity (talk) 21:28, 26 December 2014 (UTC) (And "tendentious" is my new favorite word).

Another aspect of that, perhaps never encountered by HullIntegrity, is that I have had three different courses descend on an article in the same term. They end up working at cross-purposes, with no improvement overall. So much lost opportunity, considering students have access to university libraries and sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:53, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia Can you clarify "descend on an article"? That terminology is not working for me--as in I do not understand the educational merit. HullIntegrity (talk) 22:09, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Multiple factors that usually (no always) occur in my content area. First, there is no prof on board (the profs have never edited Wikipedia, don't follow their students, and don't even know how to). Second, the students almost never tag article talk to indicate they are working. Third, they rarely understand that Wikipedia has unique sourcing guidelines for biomedical and health content. Fourth, they have almost never read the article, or understand medical article structure in terms of where to insert what content. Fifth, they invariably drop content in from sandbox the day before their assignment is due, after which they will leave. Sixth, they have never discussed sources in advance or consulted talk to understand what useful improvements they might make to the article. Seventh, often they are making POV edits to further a prof's pet agenda. Now, have three classes doing this at the same time, knowing that you must find and access each source to figure out if the content is salvageable, and no prof who will cleanup afterwards ... descend upon refers to dumping poorly sourced, off-topic, poorly written content from a sandbox into an article, which will end up in a revert after several hours of editor time to track down the sources used.

Considering that you say you don't operate according to what is the norm that I experience, would it not be better for your students edits to be tracked, so that some editors can develop a favorable impression of student editing, while at the same time being able to more quickly identify problematic student editing? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:35, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

On your point about multiple classes on the same article: Since the Course Page is meant to list the Articles to be edited by each student, maybe Wikipedia could set up a regular (bot?) check for overlapping courses? @Ragesoss:? Granted, the problem could be avoided if students were expected to discuss or at least signal upcoming big edits on the Talk page. Or if they only inserted little pieces at a time. Also, though we ask students to post a Course Assignment banner on each Article Talk, couldn't that be automated once they put the article on their Course page? Thanks! ProfGray (talk) 22:50, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

• Wow. That sounds like a ginormous amount of work for little return. Why? HullIntegrity (talk) 23:08, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

• I will try to sketch out our current plans for tech development soon, but both checking for overlapping assignments and (later on) automatically posting the course assignment banners are things we're planning to tackle. We're currently working on the Dashboards (work in progress, and the url will change soon) that will be the base for long-term course platform we want to build.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:51, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
• Automatic banner posting would be very useful. I was planning to try and use AWB to do it. HullIntegrity (talk) 14:48, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Counter-example

Contrasting the claims above, I have stopped editing for months at a time because it is so demoralizing to keep up with what the Education Program does to my watchlist. This is one morning's hit to my watchlist (in this case, the additions of this one course are old and I've already dealt with them this term, but welcome to my life). This one course hit my watchlist all term without a single good piece of text added, and plenty of problematic text that took hours to deal with. I have basically stopped adding any meaningful content to Wikipedia, because cleaning up my watchlist after students takes all my time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:19, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Sample from one course
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
(Education Program article log); 15:50 . . Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk | contribs) added article Autism to Emmy121209's list of articles for course Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014) ‎ (Education Program article log); 15:50 . . Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk | contribs) added article Posttraumatic stress disorder to Sibella-hallward's list of articles for course Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014) ‎ (Education Program article log); 15:49 . . Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk | contribs) added article Anorexia nervosa to Laurel2017's list of articles for course Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014) ‎ (Education Program article log); 15:49 . . Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk | contribs) added article Anorexia nervosa to Whclass's list of articles for course Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014) ‎ (Education Program article log); 15:49 . . Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk | contribs) added article Autism to Halle330's list of articles for course Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014) ‎ (Education Program article log); 15:47 . . Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk | contribs) added article Premenstrual dysphoric disorder to Gkg105's list of articles for course Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014) ‎ (Education Program article log); 15:46 . . Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk | contribs) added article Anorexia nervosa to Dasani125's list of articles for course Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014) ‎ (Education Program article log); 15:45 . . Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk | contribs) added article Anorexia nervosa to Summ day's list of articles for course Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014) ‎ (Education Program article log); 15:44 . . Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk | contribs) added article Premenstrual dysphoric disorder to Peacefulplaces's list of articles for course Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014) ‎ (Education Program article log); 15:44 . . Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk | contribs) added article Posttraumatic stress disorder to Ob2214's list of articles for course Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014) ‎ (Education Program article log); 15:43 . . Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk | contribs) added article Posttraumatic stress disorder to JambaJuicy's list of articles for course Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014) ‎ (Education Program article log); 15:43 . . Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk | contribs) added article Autism to Spuddybuddy821's list of articles for course Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014) ‎

I confirm that SandyGeorgia is expressing a common sentiment and what she describes is representative of what many Wikipedians experience when a class comes to pages on their watchlist. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:46, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

clarification - The sentiment that I recognize is frustration among Wikipedians who encounter unresponsive students. I am not referring to frustration about professors or students in general, the education program, or Wiki Ed. I have never seen a problem when student editors were committed to responding to feedback from Wikipedians. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:40, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

+1. I agree too. And I want to point out that the specific data here speak loudly. These are concrete examples. And likewise, there are concrete examples of student editors being helpful new members of the editing community, so no one should misconstrue these discussions as being anti-student or anti-instructor. It's about solving problems and making things better. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:23, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Is it that my students are creating new articles in an undeveloped area that I have not had these issues? I may be missing the point of the whole argument. HullIntegrity (talk) 00:48, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

HullIntegrity The problems almost always happen when established Wikipedians try to talk with the students, then the students see the messages and do not respond. If you have not seen these problems, then the students could have been editing in underdeveloped areas and not gotten feedback, or they could have been good students and they always responded when someone sent them a message. It feels really bad to be volunteering to do cleanup for people who will not acknowledge your existence or respond to you when you are spending volunteer time to help them achieve their goals. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:47, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Bluerasberry Thank you for the clarification. That would be very annoying! My only volunteers have been on-site and I am still the primary commentator, so I have not run into that issue yet. I will certainly work "Reply time" into my revision and workshop schedule, especially when I work with more people. HullIntegrity (talk) 14:48, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

HullIntegrity, you seem to have edited an old version of the page, overwriting and erasing subsequent comments. I've attempted to restore the talk page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:09, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia Thank you. Not sure how I did that. Maybe I entered through my Watchlist to an older version? I will be more careful. HullIntegrity (talk) 15:43, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

It could be many things, HullIntegrity ... editing in an underdeveloped, relatively unwatched area; editing in an area where sourcing requirements aren't stringent; they could be just doing a good job; it could be good instruction; it could be that they aren't plagiarizing, or you are catching it before others do, or you have put the fear of God into them about plagiarizing (because I have never encountered a course that didn't have at least one plagiarizer). I also suspect that English/Lit/Humanities students have a far better grounding in copyvio and plagiarism (and maybe even sourcing for writing) than do the average into psych students that I encounter, or students in the sciences in general.

But, as a friend who commented on my editing vs. hers once said, "Louisa May Alcott is not cholera", or "you can't die from 100mg too much Yeats". Sourcing in biomedical, neuropsych, and health matters. Content there is not relative. And few students are choosing appropriate topics, understanding sourcing, reading the articles before deciding what to add, or adding well-sourced material that isn't copyvio. They plop in a ton of dangerous medical garbage. Most student editing in my content area results in wholesale reverts, after a huge investment in time and effort to locate and review their sources (since they don't cite correctly, and the sources are behind paywall). In four years, I have encountered two student editors worthy of cleaning up after, and in those cases, I had to spend ten times the effort it would have taken me to write the article myself from scratch. I would not mind mentoring the students if there was a payoff-- if they would stay and help build content, compensating for the time I lose cleaning up. I have never known a student editor to stay on and pay back.

So, the issue here is how to get Wiki Ed Staff to help educate profs better; at times they seem willing, but it seems like two steps forward, one step back, every term. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:47, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

There're many variables that ultimately determine if a course is successful. Class size, availability of tutorial, quality of TA, whether the prof is on top of the game all play a role. Don't forget that the level of the course is also a good predictor. First or second year courses tend to produce lower quality of writing and more instances of plagiarism than third/fourth/grad courses. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:27, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

And my watchlist is generally hit by Intro to Psych courses, with numerous students who can't write at all, don't know how to thoroughly research, are not versed in Wikipedia's sourcing guidelines for medical content, and shouldn't be adding medical content to one of the world's most viewed websites. But it's not only Intro to Psych courses; some of the upper-level neurology courses that hit these articles have the same problems. In the upper-level courses, it's more clearly an issue with either the prof or the quality of instruction. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:29, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I am clearly using my students primarily as minions to create proto-articles (stubs and starts) for me to fix (though they are not required to post). I need to think about that more. HullIntegrity (talk) 15:52, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

HullIntegrity, hi. Not sure why you are "fixing" these. Why not make your next session improve these stubs/starts? Maybe assign 2-3 students to improve each attempt from last semester and let them also work together on only 1 new? (Granted, overseeing teams might be too much of a drain on your time. I want to have teams so I have fewer articles & edits to track and respond to.) Anyway, unless you find specific violations, you can leave improvements to the general community IMO (as Sandy said, no health risk). My 2 cents, hope you don't mind ProfGray (talk) 18:37, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

ProfGray I fix the articles because I am a Wikipedia editor and I asked the students to write them (though, again, they are not require to post them for credit, or I can post for them) and their skill set is low. That way they know "I have their back". They are not alone. And I also do not want my actual name attached to crappy work since I am an "outtie" Wikipedian. "Works in progress" I am OK with. HullIntegrity (talk) 19:40, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

ProfGray Further clarification: managing (and evaluating) team work is not really in my skill set, so I generally do not do it--though I have a colleague who is doing so very successfully. But I will have later classes improving the work of earlier classes starting in the Spring as part of their Wikitraining. But even THAT is a LOT of organization. And I am very lucky to teach in a computer lab for all of my contacts hours. HullIntegrity (talk) 22:45, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Back to the thread here, I would imagine (since I haven't taught a course here yet) that tagging student edits could be useful to teachers -- e.g., to help assess them in comparative or consolidated ways. Thanks! ProfGray (talk) 18:37, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

FYI, this is T76384. Cenarium (talk) 13:53, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: JustJess PhD (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Jessica Pabón

Institution

SUNY New Paltz

Course title and description

WOM393-02 Gender and Sexuality in Hip Hop Culture is a special topics course for advanced undergraduates. In this course, students will utilize an analytical feminist lens to explore Hip Hop’s history, aesthetics, and politics, paying particular attention to the various modes of resistance created by marginalized participant actors (mostly by girls, women, and queer individuals). To do our part in making knowledge about marginalized individuals accessible, students will produce Wikipedia pages relative to gender and sexuality in Hip Hop culture.

Number of students

Course is currently at 20 enrolled, capped at 30.

Start and end dates

January 20, 2015-May 5, 2015

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --JustJess PhD (talk) 16:53, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Jessica, I see that the class as a whole has students employing "an analytical feminist lens". I'd have a read over Wikipedia's policy about neutral point of view to understand (if you don't already) the difference between writing for Wikipedia and the other writing students may do in your class. It's fine (and helpful!) to summarize sources by feminist writers, but Wikipedia isn't the place for student authors to themselves analyze hip hop culture through a feminist lens. Calliopejen1 (talk) 19:06, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

@JustJess PhD: I looked through your course draft, and it seems like a sound Wikipedia assignment. I'm particularly glad that you will be checking the topics that students will be working on to make sure they are suitable for Wikipedia. We can also help you with this-to make sure that the topics your students are choosing have enough secondary literature to back them and to ensure that they meet WP's notability requirements. Thank you Calliopejen1 for your advice as well. IT's a good point and something to be mindful of throughout the term. I will go ahead and grant you course instructor rights and follow up with more information about Wiki Ed's resources in an email. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:34, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

@Calliopejen1: @Helaine: Thank you for the feedback. While the class overall trains them to use a feminist analytical lens, we will certainly go over the difference between a WIki page and a persuasive article. The feminist part of this project, if it must be outlined, for my students is in the act itself of making knowledge about marginalized voices/histories accessible to a public outside of the academy--this is something they are very committed to. --JustJess PhD

Prepare students for WP re: battleground or uncivil conduct, etc

To what extent should I prepare (or caution) students that they might have unpleasant experiences on Wikipedia while doing their assignments?

On the one hand, I want to cultivate student enthusiasm for Wikipedia assignments. Some might be enthusiastic from the get-go, but others are likely to be hesitant, if only because it's an unfamiliar type of homework. On the other hand, if I don't prepare them in advance for unpleasantness, then the pushback might be worse. I'm not thinking only about reverts or removal of student edits, but (gendered) insults and Talk page hostility, etc.

Is it uncommon for students to report unpleasant experiences with Wikipedia while doing assignments? Also, perhaps related -- should I recommend that female students not disclose their gender e.g. on their User page? Thanks! ProfGray (talk) 18:41, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe the best thing to do is to just advise them that we have pretty much the same percentage of jerks and idiots and malcontents as the real world, maybe even at a slightly higher percentage. Considering your course will deal with religious topics, though, it might not be a bad idea to indicate that we do have quite a few zealots of all sorts around here, including Jewish, Christian, agnostic/atheist, and possibly neopagan, and there is a chance that they might cross one or more of those groups. In the event that they do face such harassment, possibly including e-mail harassment or maybe off-site harassment, and if the online ambassadors don't see it and act upon it, maybe it would be a good idea to tell them to raise any concerns regarding the conduct of others with the ambassadors privately or publicly, as they see fit and depending on the nature of the conduct, and maybe follow whatever course of action they advise? John Carter (talk) 18:53, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

ProfGray Hostility rises when students are not prepared to play by the native rules on Wikipedia. The way that students play by the rules is that they expect that real humans will review their content, and that they should respond to interactions while recognizing that real human volunteer time has gone into any response they get.

In practical terms, my only advice would be to tell them to submit their "final" edits 2-4 weeks before they expect to be finished with Wikipedia, and to respond to anyone who comments on their work. Most problems happen when students drop content into Wikipedia before they intend to leave and they fail to respond to the volunteers that process their contributions.

Someone else can comment further on the gender issue, but historically here, the issue rarely arises with new student editors in their early engagements with Wikipedia. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:55, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

My experience has been that if I am practical about "What Wikipedia Is" and explain it as well as I can, then the students are fine. Then again, my volunteers were on-site in a computer classroom so we had "safe space". The only real issue we had last semester was that (apparently) another teacher assigned the same new article as I did and they posted first. I had my student then switch to "combo-editing" with their draft and told them "That is what Wikipedia is." She was a little disappointed, but I am very flat about that--that is what Wikipedia is. You did good work, combine it with others' work. I do have to admit that I am a little concerned about working with online volunteers during the class session as I do not want my students to confuse my role with others' since I am the evaluator. HullIntegrity (talk) 22:05, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Nice. But when you "explain it as well as I can," HullIntegrity -- how much do you say about the stuff that can exasperate or turn off people? Do you have an outline to your intro talk(s)? ProfGray (talk) 02:53, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

ProfGray, those are excellent questions, and it always makes me very happy to see an instructor thinking carefully about these things ahead of time. Kudos to you! First, please let me suggest that you read WP:ASSIGN, which is a good place to get a feel for the intersection between the established editing community and new student editors. If you and your students follow the advice there, you will pretty much head off the kinds of problems you ask about here. Blue Rasberry is right about not presenting established editors with unexpected surprises, and John Carter is right about us having just as many jerks as elsewhere, and about religion being a contentious topic. You can realistically expect that when a student makes an edit about religion, and someone else has a strong opinion about that religion, there may be a reaction, although it usually will not be impolite. If there are insults, they will most likely be about the student allegedly being bigoted against a religion, and not about gender. (You can familiarize yourself with WP:NPA, which says that your students have recourse if a jerk does insult them; however, that is only after the fact, not a preventative.) One approach I think you might consider very seriously is having all of your students not identify themselves by real name, or by contact information such as e-mail address. All Wikipedia contributors have the right to personal privacy. Some editors use their real names to edit, whereas others, like me, use a fictitious user name. Your students need to indicate explicitly that they are students in your class, but they are not obligated to divulge anything else, and certainly not their gender. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:48, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I am shocked to find that your name isn't really Tryptofish. That said, I wouldn't necessarily recommend to people that they edit with their real name, because nearly everything on Wikipedia is indexed and stored. It's always possible to get a courtesy vanishing, but there's always residual stuff that doesn't come with that (@-replies, for example, which you would have to manually change). I tend to just edit Wikipedia as I'm seeing things that I look up - which is nearly everything, which is a great habit to get into, but then your contribution list ends up reading like a public version of your internet history, searchable on Google by your name. So that's my $0.02 on that matter.

Your name is not really Tryptofish? :) New semester. And holy holey here they come! New wonderful. I have till March 5th. HullIntegrity (talk) 23:36, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

As for the other stuff, I would say that Wikipedia is interesting in that while it may be a very contentious place in general (consider that there's only one version of each page, so if we disagree on what should go there at most one of us can get our way), because of the fact that it's so focused (everything must stay on topic, and that topic is editing an encyclopedia), I've found the quality of intense and uncivil behavior to be more civil than average for the internet. Personal attacks tend to be of the flavor, "Based on this person's editing, they are stupid/ a shill / biased in some way, therefore they are wrong" - logically incorrect, but not exactly psychologically damaging. You don't have to tell anyone your gender, race, age, sexual preference, etc, and even if you do, as long as you're not making it an issue (e.g. "this is offensive to me as a (x)), no one will bring it up (I don't think I've ever seen that happen). So yeah, there may be arguments, but they aren't anything that a reasonable adult should worry about, like, at all. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 21:20, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, the best advice is often to meet any impoliteness with politeness. But I do think ProfGray is doing the right thing by preparing students to know what to expect. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:40, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I think the advice above is sound. If students start editing early on in the course they will more easily get the feel for things. Likewise if the problems get serious there is more time to get help. However, when students try and complete their assignment in one last rush before the deadline, this when the risk factor heightens: trying to add too much material (especially if they are tempted to close paraphrase), forgetting that they are editing a collaborative project and just focusing on their own goals, and finally already experiencing a certain amount of tension caused by their deadline.Leutha (talk) 20:59, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

How contentious edits will be will vary based on the articles being created/expanded/edited...regarding religious topics, expanding the encyclopedia with well cited facts (Who/What/When) is much less likely to be at issue then trying to explain a "How/Why" such as claims that X influences Y, etc. Steer your students to not just use citations, but to use reliable sources with neutral points of view. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:55, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi. Very fine advice, but mostly y'all are not answering the question. Yes, let's assume that I plan for them to edit early, not at last minute, use the Talk pages, follow NPOV, be anonymous, etc. Is it better pedagogic strategy to warn them in advance that Wikipedia can get contentious (or ugly) backstage? (This seems like John Carter's leaning. But how frank or detailed should my warnings be? See [this page?!]) Or, can I focus on the positive at the beginning, because nothing bad will likely happen if the student follows our game plan. (This seems to be Tryptofish, Blue Rasberry , and Leutha 's approach.)

Maybe I should ask if there are any sample lesson plans, e.g., for the introductory sessions. I started my own here: User:ProfGray/312/Lesson plan week 2, where I leave room to deal with misconduct by them or other editors. ProfGray (talk) 22:30, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I would warn that with Wikipedia being such a huge project, there are many people that edit against our policies (especially NPOV) and they may run in to them. What to actually do from there is a bit trickier, and many student are not going to want to go through the process needed to resolve it, especially as it may involve having a page protected from any editing until the issues are resolved (assuming the students will be editing in main space)--unlike your course, Wikipedia has no deadlines, and edits and administrators will have no sympathy for a student request to unprotect a page just because they have an assignment..that is why I was providing advice to try to avoid those types of articles as assignments. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:00, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, xaosflux. My WP assignments would be incremental (e.g., start with sentences about facts) and require students to work off of solid reliable sources (i.e., our textbook and then academic articles). But I certainly want students to write about academic Biblical criticism (i.e., How and Why claims) in articles, so they could easily run into opposition. I'm less concerned (than your comment above) about students staying long enough to resolve disputes. As long as they handle themselves in a civil manner, and submit well-substantiated edits, I don't mind if they walk away and let the process run its course. Their grades won't depend on defending their writing on Wikipedia. At the end of the day, I'd love for them to have a positive experience even if the overall text contributed is modest. ProfGray (talk) 02:47, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Responding to your follow-up questions, I looked at your week 2 lesson plan, and I think that your tone is just right, nothing that I would change about it. I do not think that you need to come on strong with them about things that can go wrong in terms of incivility by other editors they might encounter. Emphasizing it too much would lead them to enter the class project with unfounded anxieties, whereas starting off on a positive note clearly would be better. It's important to make sure that the student editors, themselves, conduct themselves properly, because that's the best preventative against other editors reacting badly. Then, if your students are doing things right, they start off with the upper ground when some other editor proves to be a jerk (in your case, most likely in the form of accusing the student of being prejudiced against the religion). If that arises, and it will only arise occasionally, then the students should, first, remain polite themselves, and second, seek advice instead of responding in a confrontational way. In fact, it would be appropriate for students who have been mistreated, or for you, to post about it here or at WP:ENI, where supportive editors can be reached. Besides, most students today already know how "teh internets" can be an incivil place. My name really is Tryptofish, and I'm actually a fish, not a human. There, the secret is out. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:17, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks… and glad that your secret is out.ProfGray (talk) 16:04, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

There are at least a few well-regarded academic reference works relating to biblical interpretation specifically as the general topic that I know of. And, of course, any number of reference works about and overview works about the individual books of the Bible themselves, at least some of which are more from an broadly academic perspective than from a specific faith tradition. Granted, we are not optimally supposed to use such sources, but if the situation ever arises where it might help the discussion to cite them in the discussion, that could definitely help resolve any concerns about neutrality there. John Carter (talk) 16:31, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

The sort of academic encyclopedic works you mention would seem to me the ideal source for controversial topics, if they are reasonably current. DGG ( talk ) 05:06, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, DGG and John Carter, my students would start with a reliable tertiary source (an Oxford UP textbook). They could use some other tertiary sources (eg Anchor Bible Dictionary, which is an encyclopedia) and I will assign some key secondary (academic) sources that are exemplary views. Perhaps I can find some review articles (ie, tertiary) but it's good and appropriate to use secondary sources, which students (or any editor) should learn to paraphrase & place in WP articles on narrow topics. I think it's important knowledge for WP to explain academic debates about Biblical history, archaeology, composition, ritual, etc. ProfGray (talk) 07:53, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Future of education extension userrights

The education extension is associated with three userrights described at Wikipedia:Education program/Ambassadors.

• Campus volunteers
• Online volunteers
• Course instructor (where is the list of these?)

These are also described at Wikipedia:User_access_levels#Course_coordinator.2C_instructor.2C_online_and_campus_volunteer. Previously, these were called "campus ambassador" and "online ambassador". I am not sure when the name changed or why. Also until this month, the Wiki Ed Foundation supported the use of campus and online volunteers in the classes which it supported, but recently has said "Wiki Ed won't be promoting the Ambassador program as connected to our organization or granting 'online volunteer' or 'campus volunteer' user rights anymore."

I still like these user rights, and I have always thought that this and the education program extension would be useful for managing attendance at editathons and Wikipedia clubs. If Wiki Ed does not want this functionality, then I would like it made available for general use. Thoughts? Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:35, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

The reason they were renamed was to avoid making the software specific to the education program and its Ambassador role, so that the extension could be used for other projects (like editathons, Wikipedia clubs, etc). At this point, though, I wouldn't recommend relying on the extension for new projects. Wikimedia Foundation is not actively developing it, and is unlikely to do so any time soon. Wiki Ed's tentative plan at this point is to build a new course page system from scratch (as an OAuth-based web service on wikiedu.org, with automatically updated conventional wiki pages taking the place of the extension-based course pages), since the extension is a dead-end.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:57, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

What needs to be clear is timeline for moving the Education Program off of the encyclopedia (is it effective now?) and if the encyclopedia has any need to even have the module left enabled at all. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:26, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

The timeline depends on how long it takes to develop a system for tracking courses that can replace it. My rough guess is one year from now, but that's little more than a guess at this point.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:31, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Merge userights - campus volunteer and online volunteer

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived.

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This is a light consensus and note that I both started this discussion and am closing it, which is not entirely proper. Only one userright should be requested, granted, and used to manage the former roles of in-person and online outreach volunteer. It is supported here that two education extension userrights described at mw:Extension:Education_Program/Preferences - called "Campus volunteers (ep-campus usergroup)" and "Online volunteers (ep-online usergroup)" - cease to be differentiated on English Wikipedia. Ideally this should be one userright, one role, with one process for using it. No action need be taken, but at some point, this could mean removing the userright from one of the groups and applying the other user right to those who had a right removed. It could also mean only offering one of the userrights, and creating documentation that although English Wikipedia allows either of these to be granted, only one should be used. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:27, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

At the very least, the campus volunteers and online volunteers userrights should be merged into a single userright.

Previously there was not strong distinction between these userrights. Both had the same application and review process. Both granted nearly identical rights - either the right to list one's user name in the "campus volunteer" box, or the "online volunteer" box right below that. Anyone with one right could request the other anyway, but for whatever reason, they were always differentiated.

The Wikimedia community has no infrastructure for developing a distinction between these when even the Wikimedia Foundation and Wiki Ed did not produce documentation distinguishing these. It would be a burden and confusing to keep them distinct, so they should be merged.

• Support Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:35, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
• Comment From a practical perspective, I think this is definitely the right move. The user rights for the extension are more complex than they need to be. From a software perspective, this is more complicated... especially because the extension is being used on several other language versions of Wikipedia as well. In my opinion, there are a lot of problems with the extension that would take precedence over this, if additional development work was being done on it.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:57, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Sage (Wiki Ed) Perhaps one could be deprecated with all members kicked out of it, or manually migrated to the other. I am more interested in only having one than actually doing a merge. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:44, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support, see below in the "rename" section. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:13, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

  Both rights, (ep-becampus) and (ep-beonline) could be added, it is not required to actually use either one of those if not wanted. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:20, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support, assuming it wouldn't be too big of a burden to merge the two. There is no great distinction between the two roles, and it's simply more practical to have one userright for all ambassadors. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 17:33, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Really small difference, it can be done in one rights, — Revi 04:44, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support: Keep things straight forward.Leutha (talk) 14:37, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Rename the community-granted userright to "ambassador"

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived.

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This is a light consensus and note that I both started this discussion and am closing it, which is not entirely proper. There is no consensus to change the name of the userright. Right now the default name will be either "Campus volunteers (ep-campus usergroup)" or "Online volunteers (ep-online usergroup)", which is how it has been in the past. No action need be taken. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:27, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

A community process is developed here for granting access to a userright which allows participation in the education extension. Previously the userrights have been called "campus ambassador" and "online ambassador", but were renamed to be "campus volunteer" and "online volunteer" when the roles were not working out in education. Those names do not make as much sense in the community context, as all Wikipedians are volunteers.

The distinguishing characteristic of these userrights is that they involve a Wikipedian contacting a non-Wikipedian for collaboration. The education program extension is designed as a tool for outreach, and has not been imagined as something that would be of interest outside of an "ambassador" representing a group of Wikipedians. Because of historical precedent, and because the word works, a community granted userright for this extension should be named "ambassador".

If the two roles are merged, then after the merge, the name for the userright should be "ambassador".

• Support Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:35, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

• The current user rights are called course campus volunteer and course online volunteer; I support renaming one of these to course ambassador; however object to calling it simply "ambassador" as these really only are in the scope of the educational program courses modules, not the encyclopedia as a whole. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:17, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I am proposing that the name change happen to make it more apparent that this extension be used in general meetups and not part of courses. See below. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:47, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

So what would you want the usergroup to actually be able to do the only permissions this group grants are to the course modules; I've got no objection to transitioning the course modules from the education program to general use though. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:12, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Xaosflux I want the group to be encouraged to create course modules. "Course modules" might be reimagined as "event modules" or "group modules". If a group of Wikipedians meet up, then someone make make a module to track them for a day. If all the people in a group wish to continually track each other over time, especially if there are new Wikipedians among them, this module would work for that also. I want to give permission to almost anyone to make modules; right now, module making is restricted to "course instructors", and that title carries the baggage of seeming to be reserved for actual university course instructors. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:42, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I would also object to calling them ambassador, as if they represented Wikipedia in general. DGG ( talk ) 16:50, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

DGG They represent some part of Wikipedia with no defined limits. There is something granted here which encourages people to go out into the world and say something. "Ambassador" is one word for that. Some thesaurus website has others. What about "organizer", "promoter", "agent", or "messenger"? Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:56, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

"guide", "course guide" "organizer," "group organizer" -- all of these are a little more specific, but I agree with Blue that the nomenclature is much less important than the basic idea of r combining roles into something more easily understandable. My objection to "ambassador" was meant to be read as an expression of dissatisfaction with some of their work so far. DGG ( talk ) 22:52, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I think there are too many change discussions going on at once---we need to determine what the near-term and long-term future of the courses modules are at all, and how/if permissions are needed at all (i.e. is the coordinator/instructor/volunteer/student hierarchy even needed at all?; will "schools" still be needed?) — xaosflux ^Talk 17:06, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Xaosflux I could talk with you by phone or video about this, but in response to your questions: Yes, I favor continuation of course modules as in the past; yes, I favor the continuation of community review for people with the "ep-X" permissions as in the past; yes, I would favor software development to change things like the "schools" field, but that is not a priority; overall, I just favor explicit allowance to use all existing software outside the context of schools and even if some fields in the software, like the word "schools" and prompts for creating a syllabus, will not apply to most contexts outside of schools. Right now I am seeking leave to use the modules as they are, and the reason I am asking that is because previously permission to use modules has only been granted in the context of the education program. The biggest ask I have here is "Can I encourage others to use the modules outside of the education program?" Previously the answer would have been uncertain. Now I want to strip away favoritism for the education program and make the userrights for operating this extension more generally available. I am not ready to discuss "near-term and long-term future of the courses modules" because the education program does that, and what I propose is to move some of this infrastructure out of the education program. I acknowledge that some messes for the education program would be left behind, because for example, one-time community meetups would be mixed in the automatic categorization with course modules. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:58, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Open the education tool for anyone, not just university instructors

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived.

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This is a light consensus and note that I both started this discussion and am closing it, which is not entirely proper. It seems like there is now and has always been community support that this tool be used outside of the Wikipedia Education Program. The practical matter left to be resolved is deciding how to manage the userrights which allow a person to create and manage course pages. Creating and managing course pages is still a restricted function tied to certain userrights. This discussion does not propose a way to share those userrights, but the only historic path to requesting them was doing so by asking on the education noticeboard. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:27, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Right now the education program extension is for university professors to set up course pages, and only university professors are supposed to get this userright. However, the education program tool could be used by any group of collaborators who want to see each others work and manage their oversight of each other, as well as make their work known to the broader Wikipedia community.

An obvious application of this would be to use the tool in editathons, which are events in which any group of people meet to edit Wikipedia together, regardless of their experience level. Currently, explaining to new users how to sign their username on a page is a real hassle, but if this extension could be used here, then new users could click a button and join a group. The Wikimedia Foundation has already abandoned development of the extension, and Wiki Ed is walking away from the management of userrights, so the community can claim this functionality generally now for special projects.

To open up this tool, individuals other than people with the "course instructor" userright need to be able to make "course pages". The "ambassador" userright described above should grant the ability for a user to create course pages, join as a campus volunteer, or join as an online volunteer. The "course instructor" userright can be whatever it is and remain unrelated.

• Support Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:35, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
• Comment It's already open for other uses -- unless I misremember, this was part of the RfC for turning it on in the first place.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:57, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this is so. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Education Program extension Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:15, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

• This is the bigger question, if WikiEd is abandoning this module, the question is does the encyclopedia have a use for it--if support is being dropped to are new developers ready to take it on? — xaosflux ^Talk 17:22, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

xaosflux One application for this that I would like is one-day meetups, which are fairly common. Consider this typical meetup page - Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/ArtAndFeminism Training Dec2014. All of the people on this list edited articles at the meetup. However, it is difficult to know what they edited, and since it always happens that someone says "please sign your name on the meetup page" everyone tries signing at once and gets edit conflicts. If we had the so-called "course extension page" opened for anyone to use, then we could tell people to go to an instance of it and click "join" to have their name automatically listed. Also they would be prompted both to add the articles they edited plus review the articles of others in the meetup. To do this, we would need to set up a blank course page that only gave a box for people to join the "course". If the software is not further developed it works for this now better than what already happens, with the oddest part of all of this being that one must be an "instructor" to make a "course page" when actually I want "meeting organizers" to set up an "event page". Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:45, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support The Education Program should not have the monopoly over the use of these pages. After all, anyone can plan an educational program involving editing Wikipedia, and they should have access to the necessary tools DGG ( talk ) 16:53, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support As a pilot we used the Education pages for a Cochrane Collaboration edit-a-thon event. In some ways it was helpful but it really clunky and a stretch to make it work well. I think that it would be helpful to have a separate but similar set of tools that was tailored for initiatives with organizations or edit-a-thons. But until then, it might be helpful for some groups to use it. I don't think it should be required, thought. Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 02:19, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

FloNight Could you link to that event page, whatever its outcome was? I know it would not work well but I want to collect examples of cases where someone tried. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:59, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support: Hey I agree that the courses extensions could be really useful for meetups, editathons and other activities outside the remit of the Education Program. Great to hear about the pilot. We need more people to try it out in these circumstances, so that we can consider whether a similar set of tools would be useful or not, and what characteristics they would need. Leutha (talk) 14:42, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Closed

I closed all these discussions myself. I think that I was confirming past practices and consensus and not bringing any radical ideas to the board, but I thought I should ask the questions above because I want the "ambassador" role to have some kind of life in English Wikipedia.

In The Signpost this week at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-12-31/Op-ed there is some discussion about the Wiki Ed Foundation's discontinued oversight over these functions. I would like for community oversight to continue and I hope that the talk above helps to guide the future of these tools. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:38, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Alexandra Oliver

Institution

University of Pittsburgh

Course title and description

Art Since 1945. This course aims to introduce students to art from around the world, from the end of World War II to the present. “Arts” is conceived of broadly, to include painting, sculpture, architecture, performance, graphic design and other diverse forms of creative expression. Artistic practices will be analyzed in the context of the shifting political and economic circumstances of the postwar era and the rise of new technologies. Students range from Sophomore to Senior, with many majors in art history and other humanities.

Number of students

18

Start and end dates

January 5 - April 17, 2015

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Aolivex (talk) 17:21, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

@Aolivex: Glad to see you went through the wizard! The syllabus looks great, and I'm glad you are paying particular attention to Wikipedia's notability requirements. I will go ahead and grant you course instructor rights. Look out for an email from me soon with some more follow-up. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:38, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Theresa Burress

Institution

New College of Florida

Course title and description

This course is an Independent Study Project (ISP) that will explore the evolution of Wikipedia, focusing on the collaborative technology that is the underlying structure of Wikipedia as well as the fundamental principles and policies that are necessary to maintain the integrity and usefulness of the resource. Students will choose an area of interest on which they wish to focus, critically analyze relevant articles, conduct a literature review to identify information gaps, add new content using WikiCode, and develop a deeper understanding of collaborative scholarship.

Students will develop knowledge in their chosen area of interest (e.g., sea-level rise and history of mathematics are two possible topics) by conducting extensive secondary research, compile a robust bibliography and add to existing articles or develop new articles, create a Wikipedia portfolio, and give an oral presentation on their experience.

I have previously been the Wikipedia campus ambassador and facilitated Wikipedia assignments for two separate courses.

Number of students

3

Start and end dates

January 5 - January 31

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Tburress (talk) 01:27, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

@Tburress: I've looked at your course draft, and it seems like you hit all the major trainings and milestones. I especially like how you remind your students to respond to any comments they get from other editors on their bibliographies. I will go ahead and grant you course instructor rights. My only concern is the duration of the project. How much material do you expect your students to add during the four weeks of the assignment? Is this the only project they will be working on as part of their independent study? Thanks, and look forward to being in touch! Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:22, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

@Helaine: Thanks very much for the feedback and the approval. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to supervise these students during their ISP. The Independent Study Project takes place during a short January term, and is worth a full course credit. This is the only project they will be completing for the course. The college assumes a workload of 30-40 hours per week during the 4 week semester, and I'm anticipating that they will be contributing an equivalent of about 10 pages of content (whether it is for one article or a group of articles). It is a work in progress, but based on the shorter assignments I facilitated for other faculty members last semester, I think it will be do-able.Tburress (talk) 22:31, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

@Tburress: Thanks for getting back so quickly. this sounds reasonable. Look out for an email from me as well with some follow up. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:06, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• I have a few suggestions after looking at the course page. Before students move their sandbox work into mainspace, please make sure that either you, or an experienced editor who has been given a link from the article talk page to the student sandbox, has checked it. Otherwise, there can be unwanted drama when the sandbox material shows up on the page and other editors find problems. Also, students reviewing one another's work on talk pages can degenerate into empty praise instead of serious reviews (something that can also annoy other editors). Please make sure that your students understand ahead of time that reviews are meant to be substantive. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:31, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Christopher Lee

Institution

University of Western Ontario

Course title and description

My Name is URL: Writing for the Web for undergraduate writing students. The Wikipedia component represents 20% of the final grade

Number of students

26

Start and end dates

Jan 5- Apr 8, 2015

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Professorclee (talk) 04:37, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

@Professorclee: You don't need to request for course instructor rights again because you were already granted with it 2 years ago. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:25, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Shane Gero, Chair of the Education Committee of the Society for Marine Mammalogy

Institution

Society for Marine Mammalogy

Course title and description

Name: Marine Mammal WikiSprint

Context: The plan is to have a week long editing "sprint" in which as many members of our scientific society participate in adding, updating, correcting, and referencing Wikipedia pages on marine mammals, their habitat, and their conservation issues. This makes the event a community active initiative which lots of people participating at the same time. The idea is to create a set of engaged scientists and graduate students who become active Wikipedia editors. This both increases the accuracy on the Wikipedia pages and opens to door to may academic users who will potentially use Wikipedia in their institutional courses in the future through WikiEducation.

Participants: Grad Students, professors, and expert members of the Society for Marine Mammalogy, in addition to enthusiasts, users who are passionate about marine mammals, and editors already at work on the WikiProject Oceans.

I have discussed this with Jami Mathewson from WikiEducation

Number of students

Likley 50 this time, but we will be running it again in the spring and summer leading up to a workshop at our conference in december 2015 in San Francisco.

Start and end dates

Jan 19 - Jan 25, 2015

@ShaneGero: Thanks for posting here. I think it's great you're bringing content experts to contribute content. I'm granting you the user right so you can use the Course Page as a tool for tracking their work. Also look out for another email from me about some ideas I've had about supporting you and the other editors during this week! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 01:04, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

@Jami (Wiki Ed): Thanks!

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --ShaneGero (talk) 10:17, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• Please make sure that everyone who participates looks back after they edit, rather than just dropping off their edits and disappearing. Other editors may have feedback. (I know your course page says this, but sometimes people need to be pushed a little harder to actually do it.) Also, please make sure that everyone notes on the article talk page that the edits are part of this project, and links to the course page, so that other editors can get in touch with you if they feel that they need to. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:37, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Josef Horáček (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Josef Horacek

Institution

Louisiana State University

Course title and description

ENGL 2000: English Composition

English 2000 is the second of two courses in LSU's Writing Program. Most of the students are in their second year of college. The purpose of the course is to enhance the students' writing skills, with an emphasis on research and argumentation. The course does not have a topic per se, and students are often given the option to choose topics for their assignments. The emphasis is on the research and writing skills.

I have taught this course for four years. I'd like to add a Wikipedia component for several reasons: 1. to demonstrate the difference between informative (neutral point of view) and argumentative (opinion-based) writing; 2. to give the students a better sense of writing for an audience; 3. to emphasize the collaborative and recursive aspects of writing; and 4. to show the importance of good research.

Students produce several researched essays and make a classroom presentation in this course. I plan to supplement these standard outcomes with two Wikipedia-based assignments.

Assignment One: The Lead For this assignment, students will choose an article with a missing or insufficient lead. They will carefully analyze the article, making sure that the information is properly weighted and in the right order. They will then extract the most essential information from the article and use it to compose a new lead.

Assignment Two: Sources For this assignment, students will choose an article with insufficient or poor sources. They will locate additional sources using the university library and online databases. Then they will add the sources, along with citations, to the article.

These assignments will make up roughly 20% of the overall course grade.

I have developed these assignments in collaboration with the Wikipedia Ambassadors at LSU's Communication Across the Curriculum center. They will assist me with implementing the course.

Number of students

66

Start and end dates

1/14/15 - 5/8/15

@Josefhoracek: This looks like a well-thought out assignment and appropriate for a class of your size. I will go ahead and grant you course instructor rights and set up your course page. I will email you with more information about how Wiki Ed can support your course this term. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:36, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Josef Horáček (talk) 17:58, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Scott Warfe

Institution

Diablo Valley College

Course title and description

ENGLISH 122: Freshman Composition and Reading. Editing/Contributing to Wikipedia will help meet the following Student Learning Outcomes: "Demonstrate their ability to think critically and demonstrate this through such skills as uncovering fallacious reasoning; recognizing the difference between fact and opinion; identifying supported and unsupported assertion" and "write well-developed, coherent paragraphs that use complex transitions to achieve coherence" while "varying sentence length and type, and [recognizing] and appreciate the sentence style of professional writers."

Number of students

30

Start and end dates

1/12-5/20

@Swarfe: Thanks for going through the wizard! Since we've already talked pretty extensively about your assignment, I will grant you the course instructor rights and set up your course page. I'll be in touch. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:26, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Swarfe (talk) 19:29, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

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

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}

Name

Siobhan Senier

Institution

University of New Hampshire

Course title and description

A senior-level English class on American Indian literature. Students create bios of unrepresented Native American authors from New England and add them to Wikipedia. VizJim is one editor with whom I have worked in the past.

Number of students

20

Start and end dates

Jan 20-April 30, 2015

@OhanaUnited, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Ssenier (talk) 04:03, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

@Ssenier: No action needed as you already have course instructor rights from about 2 years ago. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:40, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application: John Carter

John Carter

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}

John Carter (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   To help with some courses in those instances I think I might be able to help.

2. In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.

   Lots of editing and reviewing at wikipedia, less elsewhere.

3. Please indicate a few articles to which you have made significant content contributions. (e.g. DYK, GA, FA, major revisions/expansions/copyedits).

   Quite a few DYKs, some A-Class review for the Biography project, helped bring Preity Zinta up to FA with copyediting.

4. How have you been involved with welcoming and helping new users on Wikipedia?

   I've tried to sometimes be a bit more polite to new editors who are being criticized in some discussions by going to their user talk pages and giving them a few pointers.

5. What do you see as the most important ways we could welcome newcomers or help new users become active contributors?

   Make it easier for them to find sources and to find which topics are clearly already notable.

6. Have you had major conflicts with other editors? Blocks or bans? Involvement in arbitration? Feel free to offer context, if necessary.

   Yes, once, an i-ban with an editor also made subject to an i-ban as per the Ebionites 3 arbitration with a very limited topic ban to articles directly relating to the Ebionites. It is worth noting that during arbitration one of the arbs asked him whether an 8 year account who had edited only 3 closely related articles might be called an SPA POV pusher, and his prior comments about e-mailing the leader of a non-notable group claiming to be a revival of the Ebionites. Been involved in quite a few arbitrations, sometimes as a party, sometimes not, once as a representative for someone who said they would not take part in the arbitration.

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?

   Fairly regularly, barring unforseen circumstances. The two hours per week should not be a problem at all.

8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?

   That will be hard. I do have access to some databanks, and some local graduate-level religion libraries, and could check the sources I can find there for too close of a paraphrase.

9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?

   Not entirely sure, as it depends on the extent of the violation. Probably advise them that they are too closely following a previous text first, then notify the appropriate bodies if the situation doesn't improve.

10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.

    Too close of a paraphrase. This can be either by word-for-word copying or stating the points made in a section of a copyrighted work in more or less the same way as the original.

11. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

    I have access to some fairly good academic libraries.

John Carter (talk) 19:11, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

Endorse. — Revi 15:37, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I'll endorse too. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:27, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Bumping thread. — Revi 08:38, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited: Maybe can you grant the userright? — Revi 08:38, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

•  Done Userright granted. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:38, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Institution

Course title and description

Number of students

Start and end dates

@OhanaUnited, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --AmyRuffusDoerr (talk) 06:36, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

@AmyRuffusDoerr: I have reviewed your course draft, and I think you have incorporated all of Wiki Ed's important milestones for teaching with Wikipedia. Because your students will be editing topics related to psychology and medicine, I will be providing you with additional information and resources. Please look out for an email from me. In the meantime, I will go ahead and grant you course instructor rights. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:43, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Melissa M. Moore Driskell

Institution

University of North Alabama

Course title and description

Earth Science 410/480 Geotectonics. Plate tectonic is the fundamental theory in geology that illuminates dynamic Earth processes. The theory explains the volcanoes, earthquakes, mountain, and the oceans. We will investigate topics such as historical continental drift, earthquakes and seismology, subduction zones, the creation and destruction of the ocean floor, and mountain building. This course introduces 1) the theory of plate tectonics, 2) basic theory of plate kinematics and geodynamics, and 3) major plate tectonic processes. Students are mid- to senior level physics students interested in geophysics. Each student will make a Wikipedia page on a tectonics topic of their choice, complete with an original figure. Students may choose to create a page on any subject of course disciplinary interest provided that there is not already significant Wikipedia content on the chosen subject.

Number of students

10

Start and end dates

Jan 6, 2015 to May 1, 2015

@OhanaUnited, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Mmdriskell (talk) 17:21, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

@Mmdriskell: I have reviewed your course draft, and I think it hits all of Wiki Ed's important milestones. Thank you for using the assignment design wizard. I have granted you course instructor rights, and I will be following up soon with more information about the ways Wiki Ed can support your course this term. I will also take care of adding your institution. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:31, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Request for help to roll over existing course page

Hello there. Please could I get some help from some kindly Wikipedians working on the education program to roll over the existing course page I had for 2014 up and running for 2015? The previous course is based here: Education Program:Queen_Mary,_University_of_London/Research_Methods_(Film)_(Spring_2014).

I have existing course instructor rights, but would like to run the third iteration of this course for Spring 2015. There are a few revisions I need to make because of the new cohort of students, and will likely need to make changes according to new materials on Wikipedia or the Education Program. But broadly most things will stay the same, including most of the course structure.

Would anyone be kind enough to help, please? Thanks and best wishes DrJennyCee (talk) 11:43, 9 January 2015 (UTC) @OhanaUnited, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --DrJennyCee (talk) 19:15, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Adding Institution

Tutorial is telling me to "Add my institution" but there is not button labeled that. How is this done? Mmdriskell (talk) 18:20, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

@Mmdriskell: The page already exists and your course page already listed your institution so you are ok now. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:49, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: Tanweer Morshed

Tanweer Morshed (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   Well, I have been involved in dissemination of Wikimedia projects in Bangladesh since 2009 (when I was at school). Since then I've made contribution mostly in Bangla Wikipedia and other Bangla Wikimedia projects, as well as in English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. I was involved in the formation of Wikimedia Bangladesh and working voluntarily as one of it's Founding Executive Members. I'm one of the sysops of Bangla Wikipedia and I have worked as a organizer in various offline Wikipedia activities, including conducting Wikipedia Workshops in universities, the Bangla Wikipedia Unconference. I'd like to encourage the students to contribute to Bangla Wikipedia in an attempt to increase the presence of information/knowledge in Bangla on internet and share my experience as a Wikipedian. I've already conducted several Wikipedia workshops and would like to arrange workshops at my university as well. I'd also enjoy arranging informal discussions and programs to inspire and educate students for making contributions to various Wikimedia projects.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   I am based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I intend to work with Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology, where I'm currently studying architecture. It is the oldest engineering institution in the country and a noted public university.

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   I have completed my higher secondary school graduation in 2010. Currently I'm an undergraduate student at the Department of Architecture of the above-mentioned university.

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   As a Wikimedian since 2009, I've made contribution mostly in Bengali Wikimedia projects and a few other Wikimedia projects. I've been also involved in offline activities related to Wikipedia, working as organizer in various events in Bangladesh; and took part in Wikimedia events abroad (ex. the Wikimedia Conference 2014).

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I'm involved with some extra-academic activities at my university. I could reach out to them regarding Wikimedia projects. Being a Wikipedia Ambassador would pave the way for me to associating with teachers for developing Wiki-activities at the university.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Tanweer^talk 23:58, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

• Support I have had discussions with this person about the business of Wikimedia Bangladesh for about two years and know this person to be in good standing with Bangla Wikipedia especially but also active on Meta-Wiki. This person has 2000+ edits on English Wikipedia and meets all usual criteria for getting the user rights requested. I support this person having outreach tools. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:21, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Skinner's Pigeon (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Robert Weis

Institution

Denison University

Course title and description

Development of Children with Special Needs This is an advanced undergarduate course in psychology. Students will edit or create new wikipedia entries in the field of child psychology. This is my first time using wikipedia in class.

Number of students

25

Start and end dates

1/20/15 - 4/30/15

@OhanaUnited, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Skinner's Pigeon (talk) 20:01, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

@Skinner's Pigeon: Thank you for using the assignment design wizard. I have reviewed your syllabus, and I'm glad you're valuing "quality over quantity" for what your students will contribute to Wikipedia. I'm going to follow up with you to make sure that you know about the special sourcing requirements for editing psychology and medical articles. Also, I want to make sure that your students work in their sandboxes before they move their material to the article live space, so User:Ian (Wiki Ed) can look at their work before it goes live. I am going to grant you course instructor rights and set up your course page. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 04:01, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: Fabian Tompsett

Fabian Tompsett (WMUK) (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   To be able to support Wikimedia UK volunteers and help create an environment in which they can develop skills and support other Wikimedians in turn

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   Wikimedia UK

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   Currently studying for MSc in ICT and Development (part-time) at UEL, working on Volunteer Support at Wikimedia UK

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   WP(en) editor for 11 years, 8 months and 9 days, WV editor for 4 years, 4 months and 13 days, 3095th most active Wikipedian. Volunteer Support Co-ordinator for Wikimania 2014.

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I also edit as Leutha

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Fabian Tompsett (WMUK) (talk) 13:09, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support I am having a bit of conversation with this person at meta:Grants talk:IdeaLab/Open Badges for off-wiki credentials. Their ideas go beyond the education program. This person obviously is a very established Wikipedian and has some history of doing off-wiki research, and in my opinion is a candidate for getting the userrights if someone would also offer support. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:00, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

This request made it to the archive page without further comment and the person emailed me to follow up. I am granting the userright. I understand that the regulation of these userrights has been in flux for a few weeks, and fewer people might be reviewing them. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:53, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

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

Name

David J. Carter

Institution

University of Technology, Sydney

Course title and description

The Master of Health Services Management is a comprehensive course in health services management and aims to expand students' knowledge and future career opportunities. The course develops students' knowledge and skills, leading to an enhanced capacity to manage health services in a diverse range of health settings.

Contemporary health service managers are active contributors to practice, policy and research to enhance health care and health outcomes. In this assessment item, students contribute and improve live articles on Wikipedia through the creation of new articles and/or the improvement of existing articles on defined topics. This assessment item focuses on critically engaging with a range of challenges related to the structural and functional elements of the Australian healthcare system for which health service managers are responsible and key stakeholders. The assessment develops the writing skills, media and information literacy and particularly critical thinking and collaboration skills expected of a contemporary health servicemanager.

Number of students

90

Start and end dates

February 1, 2015 - June 30, 2015

@OhanaUnited, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Davidjxcarter (talk) 19:32, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• This looks to me to be a rather large class. I'm concerned that with this number of students there might be some problems. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:22, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Hi Tryptofish, this is a maximum number, generally the enrolment in a half of the year is circa 45. I've got two lecturers and a TA to assist on our end - are there other ways of reducing any possibly problems? Thanks! Davidjxcarter (talk) 20:46, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the quick reply. Having three other people working with you, and discussing here ahead of time, definitely helps. I've reviewed your course page draft, and there are two issues I'd like you to give some thought to. First, I see that your students will be moving their work from sandboxes to the main space. In the past, there have been problems when other editors suddenly see sandbox work showing up in main space and finding problems in the new content. I would hope that you or one of the other assistants you have would check all the sandbox work before it is moved, and not allow it to be moved until any major problems are fixed. (If established editors who have seen the article talk page notice have done this review, then that would take care of it instead, but you cannot necessarily count on that.) I know that creates an extra layer of teaching work, but past experience has shown that editors getting angry over sandbox dumps can actually create even more hassle. The second issue is that I see that students will be commenting on each other's work on talk pages. In the past, students have tended to be reluctant to give balanced, serious critiques, and tend instead to just praise each other. You might consider teaching them in advance about giving real critiques. Additionally, please be aware that health-related editing may fall under special sourcing rules for health-related pages. Reading WP:ASSIGN is a good way to see all the other kinds of pitfalls you will want to avoid. Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:22, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
      • Thank you so much for your tips and pointers! They add weight to my thoughts (garnered from the excellent assignment resources you referred to) that an slow and steady, step-wise process for students is best practice here. I've assigned the training as compulsory and will then be supporting them in their process of drafting by commenting and editing myself on their sandbox drafts. I was concerned about the simplistic praise (or critique) factor you mentioned - I have provided some guidance (and will do again in our in-class sessions) on what is expected - essentially that it is a substantive improvement to a contribution rather than a comment or critique. We will be modelling the process live in class for students to see and to reinforce expectations. To close the loop on the health related pages, we are contributing largely to questions of structure and organisation of the health system (ie. information on the currently limited listing of hospitals in our area) so we are staying away as far as is possible from substantive discussions of the medical science etc as possible. My team are posting specific stubs and areas to extend rather than new pages as well so we are able to direct appropriate contributions. again thanks for your assistance! So So wonderful! David Davidjxcarter (talk) 22:31, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
        • It's my pleasure, and with your thoughtful instruction, I'm sure that it will also be a pleasure to edit with your students. I think that's really what this noticeboard is for: to avoid problems before they happen, rather than to have to deal with them after. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:44, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
          • Hi Tryptofish, just wondering if one of the admins might be able to grant me instructor status - I think in our extended discussion we missed that step :) Not sure of how to re-request in that case. Hope all is well with you! Davidjxcarter (talk) 23:04, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
            • @Helaine (Wiki Ed): --Tryptofish (talk) 21:17, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

@Davidjxcarter: Wiki Ed only deals with classes in the U.S. and Canada. @FKoudijs (WMF), AKoval (WMF), and TFlanagan-WMF: Can you help determine the best person for this instructor to talk with? Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:21, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks Helaine much appreciated. Davidjxcarter (talk) 01:06, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi @Davidjxcarter: Thank you for teaching your students to contribute to Wikipedia. I'm happy to see another course from Australia. :) Australian educators have been participating in the Wikipedia Education Program since 2010. You can learn more about these projects on Outreach wiki. I've already listed you and your course there already; feel free to add to it and update it. It is my understanding that the various courses in Australia are not really locally-coordinated efforts. But Frances Di Lauro is near you at the University of Sydney. She would be a great person to reach out to. And, of course, you can reach out to me. I am your contact on the the Global Education team at the Wikimedia Foundation. As Helaine noted, Wiki Ed supports classes in the U.S. and Canada and we support classes everywhere else! :) Feel free to email me at: akovalwikimedia.org. I look forward to working with you. All the best, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 13:46, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

• I have just given Davidjxcarter the epinstructor right and I am looking forward to seeing his students' work. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 17:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• • Hi Anna! Thank you for your comments here and the instructor right - will be diving in and editing our course page in the coming weeks as we get started on our Wikipedia work. I will reach out and email you once I'm started to exchange contact details. Again, thank you, much appreciated Davidjxcarter (talk) 18:10, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Ming Xu

Institution

University of Michigan

Course title and description

Global Enterprise and Sustainable Development, advanced undergraduates

Number of students

25

Start and end dates

Jan. - Apr. 2015

@OhanaUnited, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --MingxuUM (talk) 20:31, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

@MingxuUM: Since you already created a course page and it seems like you will be monitoring the work of your students closely, I will grant you the course instructor right. I will be following up with you though about your Wikipedia assignment and the new tools Wiki Ed has developed for supporting your class. I want to make sure that you and your students have our most up-to-date training materials. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:49, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Institution

Course title and description

Number of students

Start and end dates

@OhanaUnited, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Amyfrench (talk) 15:30, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

@Amyfrench: Thank you for using the wizard. I'm really glad to see that you are focussing so heavily on the value of good sources and that you will be so heavily involved in helping your students decide what a good secondary source is. I'm going to grant you course instructor rights and create your course page. I'll be following up with more info about Wiki Ed's resources. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:10, 16 January 2015 (UTC)b

Request for course instructor right: Dr Ashton (talk) (course page draft)

William Ashton

York College, CUNY

Independent Study: Editing Psychology on Wikipedia

We will be learning how to edit Wikipedia so that we can work to improve existing Psychology articles and create new Psychology articles. We will be working with the Psychology WikiProject Initiative and our IS goals are similar to some of the project's goals:

1. To remove vandalism, original research and spam.
2. To ensure that articles are based on independent reliable secondary sources.
3. To represent scientific controversies and scientific consensus fairly, writing articles in a neutral style.
4. To improve and review articles to Good Article and Featured Article quality.

Remember, this is an independent study. You need to work independently and complete the work regularly. In fact, you don't need me. Wikipedia is set up to allow you to learn it yourself. So you could just do it. However, I've planned an introduction to Wikipedia that we will work through.

After that, I'd like you to edit 10 existing articles and create one new article and submit it for review for Wikipedia's Wikipedia:Good articles status.

Actually, here's the real independent assignment. As soon as you have an article you created awarded good article status -- 1. you are done with the independent study and 2. your grade is an A+!

2-6

January 28, 2015 - May 17, 2015

@OhanaUnited, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Dr Ashton (talk) 17:44, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

• I emailed this person making an offer to visit the class in person if there is a health-related aspect to the class. Even if it is not health-related I will talk to the professor and support this class to the extent that I am able. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:58, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
  • @Dr Ashton: Please look out for an email from me. I'd like to discuss with you the ways in which Wiki Ed can support your Wikipedia assignment this term and in particular, I'd like to go over the special requirements for editing psych topics. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:13, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
    • @Helaine (Wiki Ed): That's great! I look forward to emailing you! Dr Ashton (talk) 17:00, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Sabrina Taylor

Institution

Louisiana State University

Course title and description

RNR7016 Conservation Biology. This is a graduate level class of about 8 students. I would like students to create/edit articles on species/habitats including information pertinent to conservation biology

Number of students

8

Start and end dates

14 Jan 2015 to 8 May 2015?

@OhanaUnited, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --SSTRNR (talk) 19:31, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

@SSTRNR: Thank you for using the Assignment Design Wizard and creating your draft assignment. It looks great, and I know you'll be working closely with User:BCarmichael to support your students during the process. I've granted you the user right and moved your draft to this course page: Education Program:Louisiana State University/RNR7016 Conservation Biology (Spring 2015). With that link, your students will be able to enroll from the button on the top right, giving you quick access to their progress during the assignment. I'll send you and Becky an email to make sure you get all of the tools you need! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:46, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Kermit Murray

Institution

Louisiana State University

Course title and description

CHEM 4558: Mass Spectrometry: is an advanced analytical chemistry course on mass spectrometry that covers the fundamentals such as ion formation, mass separation, detection, and structure determination and biomedical, environmental, and forensics applicartions. The class typically has between 8 and 16 students: primarily chemistry graduate students with several advanced undergraduates. One of the goals of the class is to teach students how to use on-line resources and has in the past focused on the peer reviewed literature, databases, and software. This semester, I would like to teach students how to use Wikipedia as a tool for mass spectrometry research. I have been editing Wikipedia for 9 years and am a proponent of its use for science education. In addition to Wikipedia articles, I have uploaded photographs and diagrams on mass spectrometry to Wikimedia Commons[49] and uploaded J. J. Thomson's 1913 book on mass spectrometry to Wikisource.[50] I will monitor student edits closely and will work with WikiProject Chemistry for support and feedback. I plan for students to create articles similar to the one I created on petroleomics last fall: a well-referenced start-class article with appropriate figures. Topic and article title will be vetted prior to article creation in sandbox and will be checked by instructor (Murray) before moving to main space.

Number of students

16

Start and end dates

14 Jan 2015 to 8 May 2015

@OhanaUnited, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Kkmurray (talk) 22:03, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Support. Kkmurray has a 9-year article-editing history. --Geniac (talk) 01:17, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

@Kkmurray: Thanks for drafting your course page. I've granted you the user right and moved the page here: Education Program:Louisiana State University/CHEM 4558: Mass Spectrometry (Spring 2015). I'll also email you some helpful links and guides to using our tools! Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:00, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Kellyh07 (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Patti Kelly Harrison

Institution

Virginia Tech

Course title and description

Physiological Psychology - a senior level psychology course that addresses brain-behavior interactions.

Number of students

60

Start and end dates

01-20-15 06-30-15

@OhanaUnited, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Kellyh07 (talk) 21:50, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Kellyh07, given that you have a large class, and one that may deal with some health-related content, please take a close look at the advice I gave above, at #Request for course instructor right: Davidjxcarter (talk) (course page draft). Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:59, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

@Kellyh07: I am going to reach out to you via email. I believe you have already contacted the Wiki Education Foundation. I'd like to find out more about your course before proceeding. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 01:53, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Jonah Moos

Institution

Saint Michael's College

Course title and description

Becoming a Wikipedian (Academic Reading & Writing on the Internet) This class is a special topic for advanced ESL students in an Intensive English Program

This class will focus on using Wikipedia as a model for writing and doing research. Students will choose an area of interest on which they wish to focus, analyze and correct relevant articles, add new content to existing articles, and develop a deeper understanding of collaborative scholarship. Students will develop knowledge in their chosen area of interest by conducting research, compiling a list of sources and adding to existing articles or developing new articles. The final project will be to create a Wikipedia portfolio, and give an oral presentation on their experience.

Adapted from: Education Program:New College of Florida/Become a Wikipedian (January 2015)

Number of students

10-15

Start and end dates

January 20-March 13 @OhanaUnited, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --JonahmoosALD (talk) 07:52, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

@JonahmoosALD: Thanks for using the assignment design wizard and for following all of Wiki Ed's recommended steps for teaching your students how to edit Wikipedia. I'm going to grant you course instructor rights and then follow up with more ways in which Wiki Ed can support yur course this term. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 03:08, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Steve Cook

Institution

Imperial College London

Course title and description

As part of the Science Communication module for final year Life Sciences undergraduate students at Imperial College London, a group of students will select Wikipedia articles on life science topics to improve. This is the first year we will be doing this using the Wikipedia Education Program, but it is the fourth year I have run Wikipedia editing as part of this course. Prior art can be found through my userpage.

Number of students

20

Start and end dates

2015-03-02 until 2015-04-06

@OhanaUnited, Helaine (Wiki Ed), Pharos, and Pongr: @Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --polypompholyx (talk) 14:40, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

@FKoudijs (WMF), AKoval (WMF), and TFlanagan-WMF: Can you help determine the best person for this instructor to talk with? Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 02:02, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

@Helaine (Wiki Ed): For courses in the UK, you can direct instructors to @Toni Sant (WMUK):. He is the Education Organiser for Wikimedia UK. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 23:05, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@AKoval (WMF): Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:10, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Chris Forster

Institution

Syracuse University

Course title and description

ets320-Authors: James Joyce is a course for advanced undergraduates with 25 students. As part of the class, students will be producing evaluations of existing pages related to Joyce and Joyce's work (particularly Dubliners as a collection, as well as the short stories within it, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses. Evaluating and contributing to wikipedia is a part of this class, along with two argumentative essays.

Number of students

25

Start and end dates

January 13 - April 28

@Helaine (Wiki Ed) and Pharos: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Csforster (talk) 04:02, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@Csforster: Thanks for using the wizard to create your course plan for your Wikipedia assignment. I will go ahead and grant you course instructor rights and create your course page for you. Please look out for an email from me with more information about the ways Wiki Ed can support your course this term. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:52, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation Monthly Report is ready

Hello all, Happy New Year to everyone! The Wiki Education Foundation Monthly Report for December is now available on wiki, or as a pdf and our blog.

--Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:16, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

New student training modules

Hello everyone,

In response to some feedback from our last term, Wiki Ed has gone ahead with some changes to the student training. The key highlight is the addition of a new section intended for students who may touch medical articles, including psychology.

This section of the training is now live, here.

Thanks to BlueRasberry for contributing to this project, and we are, as always, looking for further suggestions and feedback!

Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:52, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Kate Freeedman

Institution

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Course title and description

Course title: Demystifying Library Research

Student levels: Freshmen-Senior

Description: This course is an exploration of the process of college-level research. In this course, students will learn efficient and effective methods for managing "information overload" and for finding, using, evaluating, organizing, and presenting information.

The way that students will learn these skills will largely be through evaluating and editing Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia is a major secondary source for advanced research, used by both college students and scholars alike. By placing Wikipedia at the center of this course, students will gain an intimate understanding of how Wikipedia works and where this key information resource fits in the research process.

Each student will edit two Wikipedia articles. First, they will work as a class to edit the article on the W. E. B. Du Bois Library. Second, they will work in small groups to edit an article that is related to their personal or academic interests. As part of this process, students will also peer review each others' work on Wikipedia.

Number of students

15

Start and end dates

January 21, 2015 - May 6, 2015

@Helaine (Wiki Ed) and Pharos: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --TinyDynamo (talk) 03:35, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi Kate. I'm just a regular editor here, not part of the education program, but I have to say: your course page looks fantastic. You clearly put a lot of time and thought into it; I think it's the most mature lesson plan I've seen on here. I particularly appreciate the subsection on academic honesty. A couple of quick notes:

• Your grading rubric may have gotten away from you—it totals to 125% at the moment!
• I like the emphasis on ethics throughout your course page. Biased editing has been a particular problem for us on Wikipedia. Our articles U.S. Congressional staff edits to Wikipedia and Church of Scientology editing on Wikipedia might be handy in leading off a discussion about recognizing bias and the importance of maintaining neutrality in your work.

Best of luck to you with your class! Maralia (talk) 07:01, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Maralia Thank you so much for catching the bad math on my grading rubric! I split the additional assignments into three sections, but forgot to delete the additional assignments category when I did that! It is fixed now! TinyDynamo (talk) 15:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@TinyDynamo: I agree with Maralia. You have created a very thoughtful plan for your Wikipedia assignment. I especially like your integration of library resources into your plan. I'm going to grant you the course instructor right, and I'll create your course page for you as well. I'll be in touch via email with some more info about wiki Ed's resources. thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:34, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Introducing Ryan (Wiki Ed)

Hello, I'd like to introduce my colleague Ryan McGrady, Ryan (Wiki Ed). As we announced last week, Ryan will be filling in for me in the upcoming months while I am on maternity leave. Ryan edits as a volunteer as User:Rhododendrites and is a veteran of the education program as User:Ryan McGrady. If you have any questions about the Classroom Program in the U.S. or Canada, please reach out to Ryan. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Added ep-coordinator user access. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:56, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Xaosflux Thanks! Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:05, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Helaine (and Xaosflux)! I'm really looking forward to the next few months working with Wiki Edu. A quick note of clarification regarding my other accounts: While I have used User:Ryan McGrady for teaching purposes in the past, it was only for my own teaching. I've added an edit notice to this effect. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:33, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

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

Name

Institution

Course title and description

Number of students

Start and end dates

@Helaine (Wiki Ed), Ryan (Wiki Ed), and Pharos: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Gdfinley (talk) 23:59, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Gdfinley: Thanks for using the wizard to create your course plan for your Wikipedia assignment. I've looked over your course page and don't see any red flags so I will go ahead and grant you course instructor rights and create your course page for you. Please look out for an email from me with more information about the ways Wiki Ed can support your course this term. Thanks. Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:51, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Update from Wiki Ed, 21 Jan 2015

Hi all, and apologies for the delay in this overdue update. As I promised last month, we've made some changes to the process for onboarding classes this term, and I wanted to provide some clarity around what those changes are, since User:Helaine (Wiki Ed), User:Jami (Wiki Ed), and (now) User:Ryan (Wiki Ed) have been granting user rights to new instructors and reviewing course pages. Per last month's announcement, we are ensuring each class goes through our staff, rather than getting onboarded by volunteers, which enables us to do a thorough review of each course page. The Programs Team at Wiki Ed carefully reviewed the reasons behind problems from last term, and we've come up with a checklist that the program manager is using while bringing each new class on board; you can see this checklist at User:Helaine (Wiki Ed)/Course onboarding checklist. Courses that "pass" each of these checkpoints are onboarded into our system; courses plans that raise red flags or fail one of the check points require that we get on the phone with the instructor and talk through some changes to make the course design better. While these changes don't necessarily solve every problem (not all students actually follow directions, for example), we think this can head off most of the biggest course-wide challenges.

Another thing we're changing is we'll be rolling out a "dashboard" that offers more insight into what student editors are contributing on Wikipedia, in both program-wide and course-level detail (you can see a test version of it at http://dashboard-testing.wikiedu.org/ — look for an announcement next week with more detailed information about the features). We think this tool (which is linked from every Wiki Ed-supported class's course page on Wikipedia) will provide more transparency and insight into student work for everyone, including the editing community. I look forward to what I hope is a very productive spring 2015 term for Wiki Ed-supported classes on Wikipedia. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:15, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for being genuinely responsive to the community. I took a careful look at the onboarding checklist, and I am very favorably impressed. I can suggest a few more things that could be added, as "red flags" if they are absent: the instructor should have a user talk page, and should check it regularly; the students should put Template:Educational assignment on the talk pages of pages they intend to modify, and do it early, and it should link to the class page. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:48, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Tryptofish. The course pages created through the Assignment Design Wizard do instruct students to add the template to their pages (here's one example). My team is working on getting all the course pages that were created without the wizard to be updated as well. I like your other suggestion as well, although I have to say, I'm curious how you think we should judge whether the instructor will check their talk page regularly! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 02:01, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

LOL! (Couldn't the NSA do that for you?) Oh well, I guess they need to say that they intend to check it regularly. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, one step towards that would be for WEF staff to use talk pages themselves. At present, all follow-up (see here for just the most recent example) seems to be via email or phone. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:14, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree. The "Course onboarding checklist" linked above forbids off-Wiki article writing, so why is off-Wiki contact and discussion ok? The instructors have user accounts and talk pages... so use them. It'll be good as a learning example; that keeping an eye on your talk page and responding to comments and questions posted there is vital to being a part of this community, instead of apart. --Geniac (talk) 00:32, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Clarification?: Off-wiki article writing forbidden? What exactly does that mean? Because that sounds particularly horrifying. HullIntegrity (talk) 01:12, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

"The instructor will have their students start work either in sandboxes or the article namespace—students will not use other off-line spaces like Word." Why does that sound horrifying to you? Sounds like common sense to me, and anybody else who has dealt with students copypasting in their poorly formatted and broken wiki markup into an article on the last day of class from Word or wherever else they were working on it the whole semester. --Geniac (talk) 04:19, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

"Horrifying" because that is an unenforceable policy without a basic alteration to what Wikipedia is. I can currently move my students "off site" at any time. I currently choose not to. If I am forced to be "on-site" I simply will not do it. HullIntegrity (talk) 15:45, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

On the one hand, it doesn't make sense for an instructor to promote article preparation through MS Word or g-doc etc, since that complicates the technical mark-up. So I understand the Wiki Ed criterion. On the other hand, I certainly wouldn't forbid my students from writing on paper, Word, parchment, Etch-a-sketch, or anything else that will facilitate their writing. Plus, a student's "writing" process would benefit from plenty of off-wiki collaboration, discussion, and feedback. So, maybe this shouldn't sound as if we don't appreciate the benefits of off-wiki work. Thanks, ProfGray (talk) 01:04, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I, for one, as a writing instructor of students with (often severe) deficiencies, do no want others interacting with their work until they feel "safe". Learning to research and write has a lot to do with trust and confidence building. Most of my students' work on their Wikipedia articles is off-site (in shared Google Docs) and it will stay that way. I, for one, do not need the added craziness of random people "walking through my classroom". Wikipedia is part of "my class". Like going to the Museum of the Moving Image (New York City) , I plan the trip with care, organize with the staff, and maintain as much control over the experience as humanly possible. We do not hang out there all the time, every single day. HullIntegrity (talk) 14:26, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I partially disagree with that last point, to the extent that I doubt that there is anything mysterious being withheld from the community when WikiEd contacts instructors. Instructors are real people with real jobs in the real world. If they are already engaged with Wikipedia, then that's a very good thing. But WikiEd is of particularly great help to regular editors if and when they reign in the instructors who are doing things the wrong way. You don't correct those instructors by leaving a note on a page here that they are not looking at. It makes very good sense to make the initial contact via a medium where the instructor will actually get the message. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:40, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I get the intent to help new Wikipedian Instructors, and agree with contacting them where they are, but language like "reign in the instructors" is not likely to get much traction with, well, us. I, for one, am not a very likely to be "reined in" and will politely skirt any attempt to do so. I think "assist where needed and wanted and possible" might be the language you are looking for. However, *roflsnort*, I understand some instructors could use some serious "reigning in", but do not quote me on this (except this is public, of course). HullIntegrity (talk) 01:04, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

And I am feeling inclined to use this discussion, and previous similar ones, as a text in an upcoming course, because it is really interesting how we see instructors and students (I actually mean that, I am not trying to be snarky).HullIntegrity (talk) 01:15, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Only in academia would people get that worked up over my reference to reigning in. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:22, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

LOL. Perhaps that is true, but you are dealing with academics here, and being referred to in equestrian terms is kind of annoying. I know you did not mean it that way. :)HullIntegrity (talk) 15:49, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

And contacting the instructors however possible is an excellent idea. Do not assume they are on Wikipedia every single day. HullIntegrity (talk) 15:51, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with jbmurray in that it would be wise to model good onwiki communication practices. There is, of course, a learning curve, but monitoring one's own talk page is kind of the bare minimum in participation here. Encourage them to enable email notifications for their talk page. If there's a concern that instructors may miss an important talk page message from Wiki Ed, then send them a single-sentence email asking them to respond to your query on their talk page. We need them engaged here. Maralia (talk) 06:01, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

My team's been busy this week with making sure all the problematic course designs get fixed, but I've asked them to think about this suggestion. Look for a response next week. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:37, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the checklist - If the contribution will be an entirely NEW article, suggest driving towards the Draft: namespace as opposed to only a sandbox or article. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:41, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: What do you see as the benefit of the draft namespace over sandboxes? --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:43, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Nothing, I see the Draft name space, and use of the articles for creation tool, as a step between sandboxes and mainspace articles if the student will be creating an entire new article. Drafts in progress can proceed where poor articles are more likely to get deleted. If someone is just working on a new section to incorporate in to an article, or arewrite-sandboxes are the best. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:29, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Sparked by this thread, we talked quite a bit about the role talk pages should play in our communications with instructors. As an active Wikipedian I'm sympathetic to the idea of getting people to use talk pages for making things transparent wherever possible.

Putting on my instructor hat for a moment, however, I have reservations about this. It's one thing to have the students and I engage in an assignment in public, to post the details of an assignment online, and to receive feedback or criticism from the community, but it's another to be asked to make all communication with Wiki Ed public -- especially if I were a new professor who might not have a great idea of the content of that communication. There's also the discomfort associated with publicly talking about class management -- how I plan, schedule, and generally conduct the class. Again, it's one thing to receive feedback or criticism about the assignment from the community in public, but my relationship with Wiki Ed is different as I rely on them for support.

Finally I'll wear my Wiki Ed hat (still has its tags and stickers attached). Our priority in communication with professors is for it to be effective. The professors who need us most are the ones with little-to-no experience. First and foremost, we want to make sure they receive our messages and we receive their messages. That's by far the biggest issue here. Even if we guide them to turn notifications on, they might get confused, miss something, accidentally leave a response in the wrong place, forget to save properly, etc. Coming back to privacy, they may also forget that it's public and post sensitive information about their class or their students.

Wiki Ed has been spending a lot of time working out communication strategies to ensure we can avoid problems as well as respond to problems faster. Moving communication with professors to talk pages would work in the wrong direction, with the acknowledged sacrifice of transparency. That said, we are considering strategies to encourage professors to engage more on talk pages as part of their Wikipedia assignments.
Note: This is my own perspective. My colleagues on the Programs team have expressed their support, but this is not an official WikiEdu statement. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Just to clarify: for me, at least, the issue here isn't transparency. It's that, when things go wrong with educational assignments, the clearest indicator is that students and/or instructors fail to respond on talkpages. And it's that there's almost nothing that pisses off Wikipedians more (and with some reason, I think) than classes that fail to respond or communicate in the ways that all other editors are expected to do so.

I would add that there are plenty of positive reasons for using talkpages, of which transparency is merely one (and not the most interesting). Another, for instance, is that it encourages serendipidity and collaboration when other Wikipedia editors can see what you are up to. But again, the main thing is avoiding the negative implications and ever-present pitfalls that lie in wait for those who decline to learn or use the forms of communication embedded within Wikipedia.

Meanwhile, I'm not particularly swayed by many of the downsides you list. The one that, in practice, does concern me most is the release of private information: students constantly are on the verge of doing this, though I tell them not to. In egregious cases, however, oversight is an option. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 06:13, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I am unclear about how "when things go wrong with educational assignments" differs significantly (and in policy) from "when things go wrong with Wikipedia editors" in general. Can you clarify? HullIntegrity (talk) 13:53, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

In essence it doesn't, of course. It's just that problems can be compounded (but benefits, too) when they come en masse, with a group of 20+ editors all doing much the same thing at around the same time (end of the semester). But they should indeed be treated the same: when any other Wikipedia editor messes up somehow, and then doesn't respond on talk pages, they're tossed. Which is yet another reason why students and instructors alike should learn to use the forms of discussion that are used on Wikipedia. Their relationship and their responsibility is with the encyclopedia, not with the Wiki Education Foundation. No other class of editor is actively encouraged to opt out of Wikipedia's communication channels. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:51, 27 January 2015 (UTC)