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.

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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)

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)