Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Siena College/Exploring Modern Topics in Plant Biology 2021 (Spring 2021)
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- Course name
- Exploring Modern Topics in Plant Biology 2021
- Institution
- Siena College
- Instructor
- Kenneth Helm
- Wikipedia Expert
- Ian (Wiki Ed)
- Subject
- Plant Physiology
- Course dates
- 2021-02-22 00:00:00 UTC – 2021-05-21 23:59:59 UTC
- Approximate number of student editors
- 12
In this assignment, you will add material that you have created to existing Wikipedia Articles dealing with various aspects of plant cell biology and physiology. The articles might be "stubs", short articles, or articles that Plant Phys students contributed to in previous years. You will complete the online trainings, and pick your topics in the next 2-3 weeks. For the trainings, you will work individually. You will make you contributions working in pairs. you will make minor changes such as repairing links and making minor editorial/factual corrections to existing work. Later, again working in pairs, you will summarize key experiments in recent journal articles and add you findings to you Wikipedia pages. Prior to "going live" with your work, we'll be doing some in-class peer editing work, which will result in a high(er) quality final product. As part of the your final exam, a take-home question, I'll have you read and summarize one another's completed pages. This will be a fun and engaging way to get cozy with interesting, cutting edge topics in plant biology!
Timeline
Week 4
- Course meetings
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- Wednesday, 17 March 2021 | Friday, 19 March 2021
- In class - Introduction to the Wikipedia assignment
Welcome to your Wikipedia assignment's course timeline. This page guides you through the steps you'll need to complete for your Wikipedia assignment, with links to training modules and your classmates' work spaces.
Your course has been assigned a Wikipedia Expert. You can reach them through the Get Help button at the top of this page. The two PDFs listed here will serve as "manuals" that you can refer to going forward to obtain guidance on a whole range of topics concenring Wikipedia and the improvement of Wikipedia articles.
Resources:
- Editing Wikipedia, pages 1–5
- Evaluating Wikipedia
- Assignment - Get started on Wikipedia, creating an account, 1 point
Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you. (Because of Wikipedia's technical restraints, you may receive a message that you cannot create an account. To resolve this, please try again off campus or the next day.)
- Assignment - Get into pairs, and report the pairngs to Dr Helm
Please report your pairings to Dr Helm, via email, no later than Friday.
- Assignment - Training block 1-let's get started! 1 point
Week 5
- Course meetings
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- Monday, 22 March 2021 | Wednesday, 24 March 2021 | Friday, 26 March 2021
- Assignment - Traing Block 2
- Choose an article to work on. 1 point!
- Assignment - Finding your Wikipedia article, and deciding how you can improve it.
Exercise
Week 6
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 29 March 2021 | Wednesday, 31 March 2021 | Friday, 2 April 2021
- In class - Discussion-submitted to Canvas. What's this all about?
- In class - Content Gaps. What's missing?
We'll talk a little bit about how to identify areas of your articles where information is missing. It's a bit tough, but I can show you a couple of examples.
Week 7
- Course meetings
-
- Wednesday, 7 April 2021 | Friday, 9 April 2021
- Assignment - Training block 3
- Wikipedia editing, the basics. 1 point.
- Guide(s) for writing articles in your topic area
- In class - Understand your primary literature
Read text and review articles beforehand. Spend time working on your primary research article.
- Assignment - Find source material, two journal articles. 1 point
Go find a couple of articles. One should be a "primary paper", and the other can be a review article. If you'd like, both of your sources can be primary papers. However, one source MUST be a primary paper.
Week 8
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 12 April 2021 | Wednesday, 14 April 2021 | Friday, 16 April 2021
- Assignment - draft work is in sandbox, with some work done
Let's figure out how the source material can contribute to your Wikipedia Article! I would like to see your sandbox set up, with some work in the sandbox.
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 13
- In class - Discussion-sources and plagiarism
Week 9
- Course meetings
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- Monday, 19 April 2021 | Wednesday, 21 April 2021 | Friday, 23 April 2021
- Assignment - Continue improving your article
Exercise
Now's the time to revisit your text and refine your work. You may do more research and find missing information; rewrite the lead section to represent all major points; reorganize the text to communicate the information better; or add images and other media.
Week 10
- Course meetings
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- Monday, 26 April 2021 | Wednesday, 28 April 2021
- Assignment - Training block 4
- Now we tidy up! Tidy is good. 1 Point
This week, you should be building your contributions in your sandboxes, and getting them ready for peer review.
- Assignment - Polish your work
Continue to expand and improve your work, and format your article to match Wikipedia's tone and standards. Remember to contact your Wikipedia Expert at any time if you need further help! The evil eye of Dr Helm will be ever-vigilent. I'll be looking for a well-developed, polished draft that's ready for peer editing next week.
Week 11
- Course meetings
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- Monday, 3 May 2021 | Wednesday, 5 May 2021 | Friday, 7 May 2021
- Assignment - Virtual Peer Editing Session.
Since we can't physically meet, you'll have to do your peer editing with one another online. On Friday, I would like you to submit written peer editing suggestions to your assigned group, and send me a copy of your suggestions. Remember, suggestions should be constructive, positive, and useful. Good peer-edits arise from a careful, critical (yet positive and constructive) analysis of one another's work.
Week 12
- Course meetings
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- Monday, 10 May 2021 | Wednesday, 12 May 2021 | Friday, 14 May 2021
- Assignment - Final article review and polish
- from the Wiki crew...
It's the final week to develop your article.
- Read Editing Wikipedia page 15 to review a final check-list before completing your assignment.
- Don't forget that you can ask for help from your Wikipedia Expert at any time!
Week 13
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 17 May 2021 | Wednesday, 19 May 2021 | Friday, 21 May 2021
- Assignment - In class presentations of your work!
Let's see what you've got! At this point, most likely, we'll be be doing our presentations remotely. The presentations will have two components.
1. The first component. An overview of the topic that you worked on, culminating with your contributions to your wikipedia article. Remember: your contributions should be approachable to a larger audience of people who, while educated, might not be well versed in biology in general, or plant biology specifically.
2. The second part of your presentation will be a deeper dive into specific, primary research literature that you used in preparing your contributions. In this part of the presentation, you'll aim at your fellow plant biologists in the class. You'll cover specific experimental questions, actual data, an discussions of how the data were used to answers the questions posed by the paper's authors.
Your in-class presentation will be approximately 30 minutes long, split more or less evenly between part 1 and part 2. Since we'll have five groups, we'll do two presentations on Mon and Weds and a final one on Friday. At this point, my best guess is that these will be Zoom teleconferences or the like. You'll be able to burnish your video editing skills!
- Assignment - Final Training modules. 1 Point
- Assignment - Take a deep breath. Give 'er one more look, and GO LIVE. Traing 1 pt.
The entire projectd should be done and wrapped up! You can move the work any time before 5/21.