Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of Chicago/Science, Culture and Society III The Computational Life (Spring)
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- Course name
- Science, Culture and Society III The Computational Life
- Institution
- University of Chicago
- Instructor
- James Evans
- Wikipedia Expert
- Ian (Wiki Ed)
- Subject
- History
- Course dates
- 2022-03-29 00:00:00 UTC – 2022-06-08 23:59:59 UTC
- Approximate number of student editors
- 30
In SCSIII: The Computational Life, we consider the rise of computation, computers and artificial intelligence from ancient, analog efforts through state calculations and steampunk computers of the 19th Century to the emergence of digital computers, programming languages, screens and personal devices, artificial intelligence and neural networks, the Internet and the web. Along the way, we explore how the fantasy and reality of computation historically reflected human and organizational capacities, designed as prosthetics to extend calculation and control. We further consider how computers and computational models have come to influence and transform 20th and 21st Century politics, economics, science, and society. Finally, we examine the influence of computers and AI on imagination, structuring the utopias and dystopias through which we view the future. Students will read original texts and commentary, manipulate analog and digital hardware, software, networks and AI, and contribute to Wikipedia on the history and the social and cultural implications of computing.
Timeline
Week 1
- Course meetings
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- Thursday, 31 March 2022
- 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.
Resources:
- Editing Wikipedia, pages 1–5
- Evaluating Wikipedia
- Assignment - Get started on Wikipedia
Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you. (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 - Wikipedia assignment blog
Begin a blog about your experiences. You can use discussion questions to frame your entries, or reflect on the research and writing process. Create at least one blog entry each week during the Wikipedia assignment.
- Milestones
This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.
Week 2
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 5 April 2022 | Thursday, 7 April 2022
- Assignment - Evaluate Wikipedia
- In class - Discussion
Week 3
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 12 April 2022 | Thursday, 14 April 2022
- Assignment - Review the rules for health topics
- Assignment - Choose possible topics
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 6
- In class - Discussion
Week 4
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 19 April 2022 | Thursday, 21 April 2022
- Assignment - Add to an article
- Assignment - Copyedit an article
- Assignment - Finalize your topic and find sources
Week 5
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 26 April 2022 | Thursday, 28 April 2022
- Assignment - Start drafting your contributions
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, pages 7–9
- Milestones
Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.
Week 6
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 3 May 2022 | Thursday, 5 May 2022
- Assignment - Midterm Wikipedia Contribution & Digital Museum Exhbit
Complete the required Wikipedia trainings and follow the assignments on your Wikipedia Dashboard to construct a substantial Wikipedia contribution in the history of computing or artificial intelligence or a historical aspect of a modern computational or AI institution. Acceptable topics include computational or AI inventions, discoveries, components, concepts, hypotheses, fantasies, theories, societies, institutions, organizations, positions, social movements, laws and associated persons (e.g., “computers”—the people who computed, craftsmen, scientists, engineers, patrons, promoters, critics, policy-makers). Topics could also involve concepts, conjectures, sales pitches and aspirational fantasies from the history, philosophy and social studies of computing.
This contribution should include at least 5 secondary historical sources, and a written contribution of at least 500 words or its intellectual equivalent (e.g., a substantial page reorganization). This contribution is encouraged to also include some or all of the 5 original digital materials (e.g., photographs, films, audio-clips, algorithms, patents, research articles, original book sections, research notebook entries, personal journal entries, etc.) for which you have permissions that are required for your digital museum exhibit as described immediately below.
You will couple your Wikipedia assignment with a UChicago digital museum exhibit. This museum is hosted as the “Scipedia” space at http://wiki.uchicago.edu. You are encouraged to add your exhibit following template and instructions in the example project linked on the side. Each digital museum exhibit must include (1) a 150-300 word introduction to your exhibit, which highlights your focus, prefaces your associated primary digital materials, orients viewers to the argument in your essay, and frames the significance of your associated (and linked) Wikipedia contribution; (2) links to your Wikipedia article or section(s); (3) 5 primary historical materials or sources (e.g., photographs, films, audio-clips, algorithms, patents, research articles, original book sections, research notebook entries, personal journal entries, etc.), digitized and embedded or linked online along with a 50-200 word exhibition description for each (you are encouraged to contribute your digital artifacts to Wikimedia if you have or can obtain rights, and link directly within your Wikipedia article contribution); and (4) a 500-750 word essay that links your topic with issues from the course to provide one of the following:
a. An account of the historical influence of the topic you explore on other phenomena within or beyond computation and AI.
b. An account of historical change in the topic over time, across domains of activity, or in distinct locations.
c. An account of some significant linkage between your topic and one or more other, related topics. An essay could, for example, explore the relationship between a computational measurement technology, like the polygraph machine, which turns lying into a numerical signature, its use in industry or government and the influence of that usage on its role in unfolding computation and AI.
This essay must reference but not redundantly describe the original materials and Wikipedia entry. This essay may also draw on the 5 secondary sources used in the Wikipedia article contribution. Nevertheless, the essay should represent an original argument interpreting at least some of the primary sources in a novel way.
The midterm may be completed individually, or as a group project with up to three students. Group projects are expected to be proportionally better and log-proportionally larger (a two-person project should involve a 1.3500=650 word Wikipedia contribution; a three-person project 1.5500=750), log-proportionally longer exhibition essays, with proportionally more digital objects; but the same sized introduction.
A note on digital material permissions: At the Museum of Science and Industry and the Adler Planetarium, student taken photos may be posted to Wikimedia/Wikipedia with full open rights as long as the organization is credited. Even online photos from the Adler are available for reposting as long as the attribution goes to the Adler unless otherwise specified. At the University of Chicago Special Collections, students may take photographs, but they must be approved on a photo-by-photo basis (by the librarian, Catherine Uecker at 
uchicago.edu cueckeruchicago.edu).
- Assignment - Peer review two articles
- In class - Discussion
- Milestones
Every student has finished reviewing their assigned articles, making sure that every article has been reviewed.
- Assignment - Respond to your peer review
You probably have some feedback from other students and possibly other Wikipedians. Consider their suggestions, decide whether it makes your work more accurate and complete, and edit your draft to make those changes.
Resources:
- Editing Wikipedia, pages 12 and 14
- Reach out to your Wikipedia Expert if you have any questions.
Week 7
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 10 May 2022 | Thursday, 12 May 2022
- Assignment - Begin moving your work to Wikipedia
Now that you've improved your draft based on others' feedback, it's time to move your work live - to the "mainspace."
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 13
Week 8
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 17 May 2022 | Thursday, 19 May 2022
- Assignment - Continue improving your article
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.
- 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!
Week 9
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 24 May 2022 | Thursday, 26 May 2022
- Assignment - Final article
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!
- In class - In-class presentation
- Assignment - Original analytical paper
Write a paper going beyond your Wikipedia article to advance your own ideas, arguments, and original research about your topic.
Week 10
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 31 May 2022 | Thursday, 2 June 2022
- Assignment - Final Wikipedia & Museum or Podcast
A second Wikipedia assignment & digital museum project is due on June 3 at 5pm. There will be a peer review period in association with the final Wikipedia contribution. Peer review will take place in your personal sandbox, between Tuesday March 17, at 3pm, until Wednesday, March 18, at 12pm. By Tuesday, March 17, at 3pm, we ask that on your sandbox, you (1) provide a brief summary of your Wikipedia contribution (1-3 sentences); (2) paste a copy of the Wikipedia article from before you touched it for this assignment; and (3) include the revised Wikipedia page, with your changes bolded for maximum transparency. Each student will be asked to peer review three other students’ contributions (see assignments under the Final, Spring, 2022 tab on this page. As you peer review other students’ contributions, consider Wikipedia standards and guidelines that would improve the additions to convey historical, scientific and cultural information to Wikipedia’s massive global audiences. Tens of millions of people will read these pages.
The second Wikipedia contribution and Scipedia exhibit may be performed on a distinct topic, or may continue developing the same article and topic as the first, if the contribution substantially enhances the former one, and furnishes opportunities for two new short exhibition essays forwarding original arguments. This second museum exhibit, however, will include an introduction (150 words) and not one, but two short (500-750 words) essays, as described above, each of which will include five new distinct primary digital artifacts (10 in total). If the Wikipedia topic is the same as before, the introduction can be similar or the same, but the short essays must be distinct.
Recall that the brief essays should NOT rehash or editorialize your Wikipedia entries. Instead, they should make a focused argument that recruits facts, quotes and digital objects to make an argument. Try to avoid Whig histories, which present the past as an inevitable progression towards ever greater liberty and enlightenment, culminating in the present modern forms of contemporary computation, artificial intelligence and techno-utopia.
In place of each final Scipedia essay and associated five artifacts, students may opt to create an integrated podcast or video documentary, linked to their Wikipedia contribution and Scipedia introduction. Podcasts must be uploaded to soundcloud and include a (1) brief introduction (which could borrow from your Scipedia introduction); (2) recorded interviews or historical audio content from at least three introduced guests including (a) historical figures directly related to your subject, (b) scholarly experts of your subject; and/or (c) scientists, engineers and publics who inherit the legacy of your subject; and (3) analysis of historical influence, change or a significant linkage, as in the Scipedia essays and associated artifacts. Videos must be uploaded to youtube and include a (1) brief introduction (which could also borrow from your Scipedia introduction); (2) five introduced digital video, audio or image artifacts; and (3) analysis of historical influence, change or a significant linkage, as with the Scipedia essays and associated artifacts. Podcasts and videos must be at least 10 minutes in length and need not (probably should not) segment the required contents above, but edit them into compelling, narrative experience of roughly equal content as one Scipedia essay and associated five artifacts above. For those who choose to produce one or more podcasts or video documentaries, your Scipedia museum will then consist of an online introduction, a link to the audio or video documentary, and a link to the other essay and exhibits (or other audio or video documentary), along with references as appropriate for all Scipedia content, including linked audio or video documentary. Finally, you may produce a single podcast or documentary of at least 15 minutes in length that covers both essays and introduces 10 video, audio or image artifacts.
As with the midterm, the final may be completed individually, or as a group project with up to three students. Group projects are expected to be proportionally better and log-proportionally larger (a two-person project should involve a 1.3500=650 word Wikipedia contribution; a three-person project 1.5500=750), log-proportionally longer exhibition essays, or more essays, with proportionally more digital objects; but the same sized introduction.)
- Milestones
Everyone should have finished all of the work they'll do on Wikipedia, and be ready for grading.