Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of San Francisco/Music and Social History (Fall 2016)
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- Course name
- Music and Social History
- Institution
- University of San Francisco
- Instructor
- Francesca Rivera
- Wikipedia Expert
- Ian (Wiki Ed)
- Subject
- Performing Arts and Social Justice
- Course dates
- 2016-09-05 00:00:00 UTC – 2016-11-30 23:59:59 UTC
- Approximate number of student editors
- 25
The USF course for which these Wikipedia assignments were designed is required for all Music concentration Performing Arts and Social Justice majors and Music Minors. The course explores the relationship between music and social change and we study music from different historical times and parts of the world, examining how musicians create and perform music both in reaction to their social environment and to change it and promote social justice. The projects in this class are designed to help music students see their research as something that contributes to public discourses not simply as homework for a professor.
Timeline
Week 1
- Course meetings
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- Tuesday, 6 September 2016 | Thursday, 8 September 2016
- In class - Introduction to the Wikipedia project
Welcome to your Wikipedia project's course timeline. This page will guide you through the Wikipedia project for your course. Be sure to check with your instructor to see if there are other pages you should be following as well.
Your course has also been assigned a Wikipedia Content Expert. Check your Talk page for notes from them. You can also reach them through the "Get Help" button on this page.
To get started, please review the following handouts:
- Editing Wikipedia pages 1–5
- Evaluating Wikipedia
- Assignment - Practicing the basics
- Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you.
- It's time to dive into Wikipedia. Below, you'll find the first set of online trainings you'll need to take. New modules will appear on this timeline as you get to new milestones. Be sure to check back and complete them! Incomplete trainings will be reflected in your grade.
- When you finish the trainings, practice by introducing yourself to a classmate on that classmate’s Talk page.
Week 2
- Course meetings
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- Tuesday, 13 September 2016 | Thursday, 15 September 2016
- In class - Assessing a Wikipedia page on a topic you know nothing about
In class, we'll discuss how to assess a page for what kinds of things you can and should change as you edit stubs about musical instruments
We'll use the case study of a page I updated years ago so first review the page as I found it back in Fall 2011:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aeneator&oldid=415299351
- Do you understand the "notability" of aeneators from this description?
- How much do you trust the information that was on the page? Why or why not?
- How easy was the page to read? Why or why not?
- Does this stub even belong in the category of "musical instruments"? Why or why not?
- What did you wish was different about the page?
Now look at what I did, and the overhaul to the page that I submitted in Sept 2011:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aeneator&oldid=451257357
- What changed?
- Do you understand the "notability" of aeneators from this description?
- How much do you trust the information that is on the page? Why or why not?
- How easy was the page to read? Why or why not?
- What changes had you hoped to see but didn't see on the page?
Now look at the page as it is today:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneator
- Assignment - Create short definfition of technical music terminology
Research and define (in simple terms, that even a non-musician can understand) two technical music terms, and to make sure there’s a reference to a real life piece of music that demonstrates the term.
Feel free to look to see if there’s an existing entry in Wikipedia for your term, and to use various glossaries, music dictionaries, or encyclopedias, but DON’T just copy/paste the text of a definition that you find.
Your job is to make a one-or-two sentence simple description in your own words, and cite the source of your information using Wikipedia coding.
Some external reference sources you might find useful for this project include:
- Oxford Music Online (available through Gleeson Library)
- Naxos Classical Music Portal Glossary of common terms
- Harvard Dictionary of Music, ed. Randal
- Virginia Tech's Online Music Dictionary
- non-music dictionaries, like Lexic.us or Dictionary.com or The Free Dictionary
Use my personal sandbox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cubanabop/Cross-functional_musical_terms) to practice inserting in your definition along with the references.
- Milestones
Assess a Wikipedia article and play in a sandbox: Get some empathy for your readers before you try to make any edits to pages on Wikipedia by looking at an example of change over time. Also: play in a sandbox to get used to formatting and entering in references.
- Assignment - Choose a stub article that you will be lead editor on
See the next week for details on what you will do with the stubs, but claim an instrument stub now (see the "articles" tab above to see all of the possible articles,)
Week 3
- Course meetings
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- Tuesday, 20 September 2016 | Thursday, 22 September 2016
- Assignment - Editing Musical Instrument Stubs
Verifying and cleaning up a "stub" about a musical instrument that is noteworthy or important to some musical tradition in the world, but does not require its own separate topic entry in Wikipedia. Your job will be to find one credible source that can be added to cite on that page to affirm its notability (about the instrument, the music of that culture, etc.) and make at least two small changes to that page.
If you’ve never heard of this instrument before, good: you’re the perfect person to scrutinize the stub and help it grow. Your job is to make sure this page introduces the reader to: "What is this instrument?" and "Why is this instrument notable?" You must also ensure that there are properly cited references that help proves you are certain of the veracity and reliability of the information contained in the text of the stub.
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Bare minimum elements for any entry in Wikipedia, even Stubs include:
- describe/define the topic. The opening sentence should establish significance of this instrument, include mention of its common and/or important uses, and be written in a way that makes readers want to know more about it.
- indicate notability (why the person reading about this instrument should care about its existence)
- provide context for the instrument and connect this instrument to other topics (e.g. category codes at the bottom of the page, adding "see also" section linking to genres/traditions that use it, or linking the prose within the stub to other pages in Wikipedia that are relevant)
- at least one reliable source/reference that is properly cited (e.g. the references are not just bare urls pointing to an unknown page type)
The best articles (even stubs) about musical instruments contain the following:
- An “Infobox” specific to instruments (add the "{"{Infobox Instrument}"}” tag at the top of your page
- a paragraph or section on "construction/design" or "tuning" as separate from its "history"
- a mix of multiple reliable sources under references
- a "See also" category for genres or traditions that use the instrument
- "Category" coding at the bottom of the stub that links it to specific traditions
- an audio or video example (or an external link to a source that can provide it)
Examples of best practices/appropriate edits to instrument stubs
The following were cleaned up and edited former members of MASH classes, and demonstrate good citation practices and proper coding and formatting for the stub page. Most of these started as one or two sentences when MASH students first adopted them. You may find it useful to review these pages before starting research on your instrument; the editors only added the information they were able to verify and document, so you'll notice that some pages have more on construction/musical use while others have more on cultural importance. Your final stub edits may have different kinds of categories/information but these should give you an idea of scope: Pinkillo, Hyoshigi, Kafir harp, Masenqo
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PICK YOUR STUB
All of the entries you can choose from are in real need of help, and each of these pages could use improvement in nearly every aspect of the page: description of notability, music instrument info box, credible references cited, non-technical descriptions, categories at the bottom of the page, internal links to other relevant entries in Wikipedia, and sometimes even overall page layout or editing the existing text.
Look at the possible articles we're working on in the class [see the "articles" tab above], and chose one of the stubs, you are now the "lead editor". BEFORE YOU PICK, CHECK TO MAKE SURE SOMEONE ELSE ISN'T ALREADY WORKING ON IT I've put the full list here, too, with a note on where it is used/from as well
Once you pick a stub: Scrutinize the entry for what it needs/what's missing or confusing, comparing its stub to the samples provided above, then do some research; what credible sources can you uncover that tell you something about the instrument and its use, especially its notability and cultural importance? Find one credible source that can be added to cite on that page (about the instrument, the music of that culture, etc.) and Make at least two small changes to that page. Can be about adding a header to make it easier to read, or adding a sentence about the instrument's construction and design.
Instruments to choose from (If you don't like any of the choices below and want to find a stub on your own in a tradition that interests you, you may add that to the list with professor's permission. Check out the page listing all known instrument stubs, or check the page about music of a tradition in the world you are interested in, and see if one of that tradition's instruments might need a stub added, and check with the professor to add that as your instrument, instead)
| Bhankora (aerophone from India) | |
| Çığırtma (aerophone from Turkey) | |
| Huapanguera (chordophone from Mexico) | |
| Jhyamta (idiophone from Nepal) | |
| Fiðla (chordophone from Finland) | |
| Bak (idiophone from Korea) | |
| Bolon (chordophone from Mali) | |
| Brinquinho (aerophone from Portugal) | |
| Dilrupa (chordophone from North India) | |
| Drejelire (chordophone from Sweden) | |
| Duhulla a.k.a Doholla (membranophone from Egypt) | |
| Ekwe (idiophone from Nigeria) | |
| Tsintsila (idiophone from Georgia) | |
| Phách (idiophone from Vietnam) | |
| Oopoochawa a.k.a quisanche (llamelaphone from Uruguay) | |
| Omubanda (aerophone from Uganda) | |
| Tlapitzalli (aerophone from Mexico) | |
| Orutu (chordophone from Kenya) | |
| Muchosa (aerophone from Belgium) | |
| Pipasso a.k.a. Picardy Bagpipe (aerophone from France) | |
| Fadno (aerophone from Scandanavia) | |
| Trống chầu a.k.a. trống đế (membranophone from Vietnam) | |
| Nabal (aerophone from Korea) | |
| Rajão (chordophone from Portugal/Hawai'i) | |
| Simsimiyya (chordophone from Egypt) | |
| Erkencho (aerophone from South America) | |
- Milestones
Submit your first live edit to Wikipedia. To find the ifo you needed for your stub update, you also learned how to navigate our university's library to find resources for any music project into the future.
Week 4
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 27 September 2016 | Thursday, 29 September 2016
- In class - Review Wikipedia page on Latin Jazz
Review: Latin Jazz
(listening clips to accompany the page are housed on our Canvas site, as are instructions for what to comment on in the usefulness of this page as it is currently laid out)
- Assignment - Peer review/secondary editing of Music instument Stubs
Chose a stub that was recently edited by one of your peers, and review their entry for the following. Be prepared to talk to them face to face to give them this feedback in class
- Do you know after reading this stub: what this instrument is, where and how it is used, and why it is noteworthy in a given culture?
- Is the language used in the stub appropriate for an encyclopedia? (third-person neutral narrative retains consistently throughout the stub)
- Click on all the links in the stub: do any of them lead to nowhere?
- What is the best or more useful part of the stub?
- What question do you still have about this instrument, or its socio-musical context that you wish had been addressed?
- [p.s. if while you're on the page in Wikipedia: if you see a typo, just fix it as a "minor edit" don't just leave the typo there for all the world to see]
Week 5
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 4 October 2016 | Thursday, 6 October 2016
- Assignment - Review Wikipedia page for your Midterm artist
You've been researching an artist-activist for the midterm oral presentations all semester. Assess the Wikipedia page that exists about them for:
1) at least one fact about them currently stated on the page that isn't cited or supported and you'd like to verify that fact and find a reference for it
2) at least one internal link to another existing Wikipedia page that you think would help connect the page to other similar pages (e.g. the individual performers within the band)
3) at least one verified act of activism they are known for that isn't mentioned on their page currently, and your reference for evidence of that act
4) confirm their best known works are documented somewhere on the page (e.g. a discopgraphy appears)
5) don't forget to note what is good and useful about the page as is!
Don't do any updates to the page, just submit your assessment notes to Canvas
- Milestones
Begin planning your article revision/draft strategy Unlike the stub, which has a limited audience, you're about to edit a full entry/page of a famous musician. What are your hopes and fears?
Week 6
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 11 October 2016 | Thursday, 13 October 2016
- Assignment - Update your Midterm Artist Wikipedia page
By the time you come into class ready to do your oral presentation on your artist, you should have also made at least one edit to the artist's page on Wikipedia (at minimum: confirming and adding one reference to support an idea currently stated on the page)
I recommend that you save/submit after each discrete edit you make, this way if someone reverts to before your edits, you can appeal or ask about *specific* edits (so if they remove a reference you added, you can ask why when you added it to help support the page)
- Milestones
Submit live edits to Wikipedia for a famous musician. Feel proud about the research you've done, and the care you took to make sure fans of this musician and future students will benefit from your work.
Week 7
- Course meetings
-
- Thursday, 20 October 2016
- In class - Review the Wikipedia entry on Postmodernism
(listening clips to accompany the page are housed on our Canvas site, as are instructions for what to comment on in the usefulness of this page as it is currently laid out)
Week 8
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 25 October 2016 | Thursday, 27 October 2016
- Assignment - Review the Musical Instrument Stub you made changes for
One month later: what has changed about your stub page since you last changed it?
(Did Wikipedians revert to an older page? Start adding new information? Did editors or bots find any typos and coding errors? etc.)
How do you feel about the changes? Are there additions or adaptations that you made that you feel invested in beginning a dialogue with other Wikipedians about to negotiate if and how to include those changes? If so, how might you go about it?
What would you have done differently, now that you have reviewed several kinds of Wikipedia pages about music and musicians?
- Milestones
See how your stub edits may have changed after a month. Wikipedia is a living democratically edited thing. Changes to your changes are inevitable.
Week 9
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 1 November 2016 | Thursday, 3 November 2016
- In class - Review the Wikipedia entrty on Karaoke
(video clips to accompany the page are housed on our Canvas site, as are instructions for what to comment on in the usefulness of this page as it is currently laid out)
Week 10
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 8 November 2016 | Thursday, 10 November 2016
- Milestones
Wrapping it up. No more edits to Wikipedia. What have you learned about discussions of music in terms of:
1) being explicit about notability?
2) credible sources?
3) easy to follow neutral language?