Wikipedia:Education noticeboard

Welcome to the education noticeboard
Purpose of this page Using this page This page is for discussion related to student assignments and the Wikipedia Education Program. Please feel free to post, whether you're from a class, a potential class, or if you're a Wikipedia editor. Topics for this board might include: Content issues created by real or potential student assignments Improving student assignment output quality per the RfC Questions about the trainings or any question from instructors or students Discussion of the Wiki Education Foundation or the Wikipedia Education Program. Students who have done great work and need {{The Excellent New Editor's Barnstar}} Of course, we should remain civil towards all participants and assume good faith. There are other pages more appropriate for dealing with certain specific issues: An issue requiring immediate administrator attention → Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents Vandalism by non-participating students from schools → administrator intervention against vandalism. Cut-and-paste moves/history merge → the cut-and-paste move repair holding pen. Students revealing sensitive personal information → requests for oversight. Please DO NOT make such requests here; reports here are visible to everyone. Course announcements from dashboard.wikiedu.org / outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org → /Wiki Ed course submissions Issues related to dashboard.wikedu.org / outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org → meta:Talk:Programs & Events Dashboard For a list of topics that students should avoid editing → Wikipedia:General sanctions#Active sanctions "Start a new discussion thread". Use an informative title: ==Informative title==. If a thread is related to an ongoing discussion, consider placing it under a level-3 heading within that existing discussion. You should generally notify any user who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{ping}} to do so, or simply link their username when you post your comment. It is not required to contact students when their edits are only being discussed in the context of a class-wide problem. If no comments have been made within 30 days, your post and any responses will be automatically archived. Please sign all contributions, using four tilde characters "~~~~". If discussion is already ongoing elsewhere or if there is a more natural location for a discussion, please continue the discussion there, and put a short note with a link to the relevant location on this page. If you cannot edit this page because it is protected, please place your comments on this page and they will be addressed. Managing threads If you'd like to make sure a thread does not get archived automatically after 30 days, use {{Do not archive until}} at the top of the section. Use {{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}} within a section to have it archived (more or less) immediately. A brief Archives page lists them with the years in which those now inactive discussions took place.
Click here to start a new discussion

New software features, design feedback requested

Mockup of course status displayed on Special:Contributions

As mentioned within a few threads earlier, we have some improvements to the course page extension in the pipeline. Namely (in addition to some minor bug fixes):

• Instructors will be able to assign articles to students (instead of only students being able to add articles for themselves, and no one else being able to make corrections or updates). This is coded, but not yet deployed.
• Instructors will be able to add students to their courses (instead of students enrolling themselves as the only way of updating the list of students). This is coded, but not yet deployed.
• Special:Contributions will show what courses a user is participating in. Coding is about to begin on this.

For the last item, I've mocked up how the information could appear on Special:Contributions.

What do you think? Suggestions for improving this design are most welcome.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 19:50, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Would it be possible to give instructors the ability to approve or disapprove a student's request to move a sandbox into article space? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:28, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

@Tryptofish: I don't think intervening in the normal aspects of editing will be part of the extension any time soon, although it's certainly worth thinking about what types of tools might help instructors guide student work on an article-by-article basis. In terms of moves into mainspace specifically, I anticipate that the Growth team will start addressing the article creation process in general before we get a chance to implement something like that within the education program extension.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:38, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

OK, thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:13, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Sage. Might you want to set a time to talk about the extension perhaps in the first week of December? Maybe we could discuss it for an hour. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 09:25, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure how useful that would be. If you have specific ideas, discussion points, or things you'd like to know about the feasibility of, you can post them at the planning page on mediawiki.org.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 20:13, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation Executive Director job posting

The Wiki Education Foundation is now accepting applications for the post of Executive Director. Details of the job, and how to apply, can be found here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:40, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Restoring a course

I accidentally removed a course Education Program:Georgia Institute of Technology/Introduction to Neuroscience (Fall 2013) and don't know how to restore it. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive257#Restoring a course. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:01, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Eeek! The restore links are not working. Undeletion of courses used to work, but it must have broken at some point due to either updates in the EducationProgram extension or something else in MediaWiki. I'll see what we can do about fixing it quickly. Thanks for flagging this, PrimeHunter.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 03:36, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

A patch is ready, and I'll try to get it reviewed and deployed quickly.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:32, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Unless somebody makes the same mistake as me, the only current need is a way to restore or recreate that specific page. I guess the contributors could live with somebody else creating the page with its latest content, if somebody has database access to the content. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:07, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

However, I don't know if removing a course page has other effects that are harder to restore. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:10, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Sage. Will that automatically restore my course, or do I or an Administrator have to do something? Steve M. Potter, PhD -- Georgia Inst. of Technology (talk) 16:14, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Steve, please do not recreate the page, which I believe will make it very hard to recover the previous contents. Once we get this patch deployed (which I hope we can get done today), then your course can be undeleted and it should retain all the previous content.

PrimeHunter: getting the patch out will be easier than trying to recreate it from the database, especially since the information on enrolled students is not currently reproducible without having each student enroll again. (We have a more complex patch that adds the ability to add users as students in a batch, without them needing to do it themselves, but that is awaiting code review.) With undeletion, that won't be necessary, because the student list will be restored as well.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:46, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

OK, I will not touch it. Good luck with the restoration! I did manage to save the page source (by saving a rendered page that was up in my browser from yesterday before it vanished). So if we need to rebuild it, that could be done. Steve M. Potter, PhD -- Georgia Inst. of Technology (talk) 17:16, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Steve, all the contents of your course page (aside from the table of students at the bottom) is still around on the various subpages. I think it's just list of students and their articles, and the course description.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:55, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks PrimeHunter and Sage. There was also a small section called "Article banners" and the Course Page template links and buttons at the top. I will continue not to mess with it, hoping it can be restored to its former state. Steve M. Potter, PhD -- Georgia Inst. of Technology (talk) 19:15, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Rhododendrites

Name

Ryan McGrady (Rhododendrites)

Institution

North Carolina State University

Course title and description

Assignment plan

Number of students

Start and end dates

I've incorporated Wikipedia into several classes now and taught a course specifically about Wikipedia last semester, but am only now starting to use the Education Program tools. I don't have a specific assignment I'm trying to coordinate at the moment because the semester is just about over but hope someone could add instructor rights to my account so I can use them next semester and in the future.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  01:27, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: Hi, Ryan! I've granted you the user rights—looks like your students did a lot of great work, including at least 2 Good Articles that I saw. I'd like to speak with you more about your assignment and any questions you've had in the past that I can try to help answer. It looks like a few students have had issues with choosing article topics that meet the notability requirements on Wikipedia, so I can provide some guides for them and tips on reaching out to editors in relevant WikiProjects to "approve" topic notability before they put all of that hard work into it. I'll shoot you an email in case you prefer to coordinate something there. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:32, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I thought only regional ambassadors granted instructors the user right. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:34, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Is this the spot where you emailed me to ask me to reply? Please let me know if you're referring to something else. The reason I never had the user rights was because some people do not want WMF employees to have them. Since I am no longer a WMF employee, work with a lot more professors than any other Ambassador, and need to help professors and Ambassadors create their Course Pages without having to go through another person, I was granted the coordinator user right. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:13, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

"responsibility for supporting"

I'm not sure what that phrase means, with regards to the WP:WEF, so I made that edit. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:30, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Should the extension be discouraged from use?

Given the poor functionality and the bad bug that was recently discovered in the WP:Education program extension, should it be discouraged from use in the Spring 2014 semester? Or do the benefits outweigh the cons? A course I help with had its entire course page deleted (still), because of a bug. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:33, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Could you link me to information about (or explain, if easy enough) this bug? --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  13:49, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I guess it refers to #Restoring a course. The suggested patch gerrit:98475 still says Review in Progress. I don't have inside knowledge of the progress but I guess it will not be an issue for Spring 2014. User talk:Sage Ross (WMF)#Course deletion explains how I accidentally deleted the course due to an unclear deletion interface (at least that's my excuse). That should be solved by gerrit:98874 which is already merged but not yet deployed. Anyway, the deletion interface was only a problem when a user with the ability to delete a course was also enrolled in a course and tried to unenroll from the wrong page. That is probably a rare combination. I don't work with the exstension and don't know whether there are other serious issues. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:11, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

In testing, I found that the patch for making undeletion possible will not restore the course in a working condition, because of limitations in the database transaction code. (Basically, even after undeletion the activity feed is not going to work.) Because it won't restore a fully working course page, we told the code reviewers that getting that patch out is not an urgent issue. (The improved version of the interface message that tripped up PrimeHunter will deploy this week.) The duplicate course page I set up for that course will have to suffice for now. However, I do anticipate that we'll have functional, fully reversible deletion ready by the time courses are active next term. The current next steps for development are to implement Notifications (so students and instructors get pinged for posts on the course talk page) and then to audit and fix the database transactions. There are still some serious shortcomings in the extension that will take longer to address, but I would say that the benefits definitely outweigh the downsides at this point... especially once the new features awaiting code review get deployed, like having a message linking to the course page show up in Special:Contributions for all student editors.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 19:02, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

If bugs were the reason not to this extension, then I suppose we shouldn't be using MediaWiki to edit? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 07:46, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

@Sage Ross (WMF): If it's unknown when courses can be properly restored then wouldn't it be safer to make course deletions impossible until then, except maybe for a few people like developers? PrimeHunter (talk) 17:42, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

It's useful to be able to delete courses, some of which get set up by mistake or with the wrong name, etc. I'd be more inclined to limit deletion to admins and course coordinators (although that would not have prevented your deletion), but I'm pretty sure we'll be able to restore courses properly by the time the next wave of course pages becomes active.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 19:22, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: 119.160.118.230 (talk)

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

Institution

Course title and description

Assignment plan

Number of students

Start and end dates

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --119.160.118.230 (talk) 10:50, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.

Oppose I don't think that we can grant course instructor right to IPs, and even if we can, we shouldn't be doing it. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:32, 9 December 2013 (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 rights

Name Brian Buma

Institution University of Alaska Southeast

Course title and description Natural Resource Management

Assignment plan Students will either improve or create pages associated with various forest certification programs (e.g. Sustainable Forestry Initiative as an already done example). There are several without pages entirely, or those that are lightly described in the context of their certification organization (Smithsonian Bird Friendly). I will have the students complete the intro to Wiki editing assignments suggested by the education program pages, and encourage them to revise existing pages over making new ones. At this point, I will let them follow their interests as to which certification they work on, as long as it doesn't already have a substantial page.

Number of students 8-10

Start and end dates January - May 2014

Notes: I ran a Wiki assignment last semester w/out using the Educational program (I wasn't aware of it), with mixed results, although the students all enjoyed it. I found out about the educational program through links to some of the students pages. Several made outstanding pages that have been incorporated into the community already (and some that were deleted). I want to take advantage of the Educational resources this time. I will organize the assignment through the class page, although that's as far as it will likely go this time. If all goes well, next fall (2014) I will setup a more formal program with another faculty member here who also uses Wikipedia in assignments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brian.wikiaccount (talk • contribs) 21:01, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

• Question. Brian, I can see just above that you weren't familiar with signing your post here, a very basic aspect of editing on Wikipedia. How willing are you to familiarize yourself with how things work here, before having your class project begin? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:18, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Oversight. I've been working around it the last few weeks, learning the more formal ways of doing things. At least I'm looking to use the actual Educational Program than just assigning things... anyway, the goal is working on it once this semester gets over with. But yes, more familiarization is always good. Brian.wikiaccount (talk) 05:50, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

That was a nasty comment--we all forget from time to time. Gandydancer (talk) 00:43, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

From Brian's 16 contributions, it looks like it wasn't an isolated problem; rather, it looks like Brian is very inexperienced on WP. So, the comment wasn't so unreasonable. -- Scray (talk) 01:22, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

[1] was Brian's best attempt to sign a post. See User talk:Brian.wikiaccount for how to do it. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:49, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

OK, I see...and then he actually never followed through. Sorry Trypto, you were right, and BTW,I was certainly surprised since I did not remember you as being such a crabby person! :) Gandydancer (talk) 04:42, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, the student didn't follow through... but that of course is something that should be dealt with in the assignment design somehow. One of the reasons for being here and looking at the educational resources. Brian.wikiaccount (talk) 05:52, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Brian (and Gandy), please see WP:ASSIGN to better understand where I'm coming from. I would want to see any instructor read and be familiar with that information page, as well as go through the training program provided by the Program, before the rights are given out. It's not about being picky, but about being able to make sure that students don't get into jams when they show up and start editing. There's a lot more complexity to Wikipedia than initially meets the eye (and, again not to be picky, but even "oversight" means something other than the dictionary definition here)! --Tryptofish (talk) 16:50, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Tryptofish, I thought that I made it clear that I made a mistake--that sort of language would certainly not be generally acceptable. At any rate, I am an experienced editor and well-aware of the problems that we are having with students, and I don't need a lesson about it. No more sermons, please. Brian, it seems to me that you are the one that has a problem with following through--I was not speaking of your students. Tryptofish was, IMO, correct to suggest that past behavior is a good indication of future behavior. Gandydancer (talk) 17:48, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Brian, as an experienced editor myself (and, I hope, not a particularly crabby one), I hope that you can see how things might go when students interact with experienced editors, and why it's important that they get appropriate guidance. As I said, WP:ASSIGN, and the training program. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:17, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I am surprised at the response, given I came in good faith in an attempt to improve the class and contributions. Past behavior as a good guide to future behavior- perhaps sometimes, but when somebody specifically makes an effort to improve, then no, it's not. Apparently the education program isn't what I thought it was. But thanks to you and others for references to WP:ASSIGN and other resources (I had seen those, and was working through the instructions - which include starting a course page via this process). Consider the request cancelled for now.

Request for course instructor right: Joe (talk)

Name

Joe Smith

Institution

New Mexico State University, Doña Ana Community College

Course title and description

L SC 255 Special Topics: Wikipedia: let's use it, edit it and write in it. Students will be second year community college. Most are working toward Associate of Applied Science Degree in Library Science.

This eight week course is about learning to use and edit Wikipedia. Students will create a Wikipedia account, make edits to articles already written and have the opportunity to write a paragraph or short article about a topic of their choice.

Suggested areas of focus will be entries about

• Las Cruces, New Mexico.
• Doña Ana County, New Mexico.
• New Mexico State University.
• Thomas Branigan Memorial Library.
• The surrounding communities such as Anthony, New Mexico and El Paso Texas.
• Translating an approved article to the Spanish version of Wikipedia.

Although there is no experienced editor, the course will work with

• WikiProject Cities
• WikiProject Universities
• WikiProject New Mexico and other similar projects.

Assignment plan

Getting Started Syllabus Enrolled in Google Enrolled in Wikipedia User Page Sandbox Overview Overview from a previous course about Internet resources Possible articles to consider

• Las Cruces, New Mexico.
• Doña Ana County, New Mexico.
• New Mexico State University.
• Thomas Branigan Memorial Library.
• The surrounding communities such as Anthony, New Mexico and El Paso Texas.
• Translating an approved article to the Spanish version of Wikipedia.
• Depending on a student's location, accept proposals related to other cities, counties, universities and libraries.

Write and Edit.

Provide and receive feedback.

Reflect about

• the course content
• personal learning
• value of feedback provided to others
• value of feedback received from others

Provide at least one recommendation to improve the course.

STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES (The following are from Wikipedia:Training/For educators/Learning goals)

• Develop writing skills
• Increase media and information fluency
• Improve critical thinking and research skills
• Foster collaboration and community of practice
• Develop technical and communication skills

COURSE COMPETENCIES

• With respect to writing, you will be able to:
  • Demonstrate writing skills for a diverse and general audience
  • Demonstrate the ability to write using a fact-based style
  • Demonstrate the ability to write and edit collaboratively with peers
• With respect to media and information fluency you will be able to
  • Demonstrate the ability to edit, expand or create Wikipedia articles
  • Demonstrate an understanding about the relationship between Wikipedia and other sources, such as news outlets, other encyclopedias, and academic research
  • Demonstrate awareness about the questions of authorship, legitimacy and reliability raised by different forms of digital publishing
• With respect to improving critical thinking and research skills you will be able to
  • Demonstrate the ability to research and fact-check content for articles
  • Demonstrate the ability to review available content to determine suitability
  • Demonstrate the ability to apply critical analysis to the content being considered for inclusion
• With respect to fostering collaboration and community of practice you will be able to
  • Demonstrate the ability to collaborate with other editors
  • Demonstrate the ability to negotiate with peers and editors to build consensus on content
  • Demonstrate the ability to engage with a community of editors working in a similar topic area
• With respect to developing technical and communication skills
  • Demonstrate the ability to engage with real-time editing and wiki software technology
  • Demonstrate the ability to get the intended message across to others through communicating on Wikipedia Article and User Talk pages

Number of students

Less than 20. There will probably be about 10 active students.

Start and end dates

January 20, 2013 through March 10, 2013.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Joe (talk) 01:43, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.