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Requested move

I have just relisted Wikipedia talk:URice University/Poverty, Justice, Human Capabilities Section 1 (Fall 2013)/WikiProject & Talk Contributions#Requested move 7 August 2017 and would welcome input there from those experienced in the Education program. TIA Andrewa (talk) 08:06, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there are nine orphaned pages in Wikipedia namespace that should be moved along: [1]. However, as a page mover, I don't have "Education Program" namespace available as a target, so it would require someone with appropriate permissions. They seem to be linked only from Education Program talk:Rice University/Poverty, Justice, Human Capabilities, Section 2 (Fall 2013)/Timeline, so those should be fixed as well. No such user (talk) 11:49, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

"Move" is not support to/from the education program namespace. If this needs to be in the EP courses format, it will need to be recreated there. — xaosflux Talk 11:57, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Are you saying that there's no such thing as "move to Education Program namespace"? Those are apparently supposed to be subpages of Education Program:Rice University/Poverty, Justice, Human Capabilities, Section 2 (Fall 2013). I don't know how they ended up in Wikipedia: namespace. In any case, they are now unwanted orphans there. No such user (talk) 13:07, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
@No such user: Correct, you can not move to or from 'Education Program' namespace - it is a unique content model. You can LINK to pages from the EP namespace, and that is frequently done. — xaosflux Talk 13:54, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
This should've just been created as a subpage of the course page's talk page. The Education Program is only for course pages created through the MediaWiki extension, but its associated talk namespace does not function that way and does hold a number of subpages. The course page for that class is here: Education Program:Rice University/Poverty, Justice, Human Capabilities Section 1 (Fall 2013) and this could easily live at Education Program talk:Rice University/Poverty, Justice, Human Capabilities Section 1 (Fall 2013)/WikiProject & Talk Contributions. Though there's not an option to move to that namespace, I wonder if we could do a copy/paste followed by a history merge? (not sure what the least messy way of doing that is -- or if it's possible in that namespace). Xaosflux?
Though not necessary here, btw, Wikipedia:School and university projects functions like you initially intended, Andrewa (sort of) in that you can move course content to subpages. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:16, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
Just c-n-p if needed, pages from the education program namespace can not be merged, exported, imported, moved - pretty much anything. You can always use a history edit summary and or talkpage note for attribution as needed. — xaosflux Talk 03:57, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Should the affected pages be deleted

See Wikipedia talk:URice University/Poverty, Justice, Human Capabilities Section 1 (Fall 2013)/WikiProject & Talk Contributions#Affected pages, and more input appreciated. Andrewa (talk) 23:40, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Monthly Reports for June and July now available

Hi all,

Just wanted to let you know that this week, Wiki Education Foundation published our last two months' worth of Monthly Reports. As always, they're available in three formats.

Let me know if you have any questions. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:20, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application:scr888

 Not done Only registered accounts can be given additional access. — xaosflux Talk 16:20, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

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.

115.164.91.48

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}

115.164.91.48 (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    YOUR ANSWER
  2. In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.
    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)
  3. Please indicate a few articles to which you have made significant content contributions. (e.g. DYK, GA, FA, major revisions/expansions/copyedits).
    YOUR ANSWER
  4. How have you been involved with welcoming and helping new users on Wikipedia?
    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)
  5. What do you see as the most important ways we could welcome newcomers or help new users become active contributors?
    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)
  6. Have you had major conflicts with other editors? Blocks or bans? Involvement in arbitration? Feel free to offer context, if necessary.
    YOUR ANSWER
  7. How often do you edit Wikipedia and check in on ongoing discussions? Will you be available regularly for at least two hours per week, in your role as a mentor?
    YOUR ANSWER
  8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?
    YOUR ANSWER
  9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?
    YOUR ANSWER
  10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.
    YOUR ANSWER
  11. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

115.164.91.48 (talk) 05:41, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

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.

Campus Ambassador application: Vicky Gupta

Vickythefamous (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    I've been using Wikipedia since my childhood for many purposes including projects,assignments,gnereal info etc.It has been always there for me as a savior.I want to be a part of this wonderful platform.I've been a contributer to some of the articles about india but I don't remember that ID.
  2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?
    I'm based in Mumbai and I'm a 3rd Year Civil Engineering Student of Thakur College of Engineering & Technology,Kandivali East,Mumbai
  3. What is your academic and/or professional background?
    Academically I'm from Civil Engineering Background
  4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.
    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)
  5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)
Discussion

 Not done Insufficient experience to be granted this right -- There'sNoTime (to explain) 11:49, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: USERNAME Dikgosi Sejabodile

41.77.91.207 (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    creativity
  2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?
    Harvard
  3. What is your academic and/or professional background?
    criminology
  4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.
    Femilir

 Not done Unregistered users cannot be assigned this right -- There'sNoTime (to explain) 11:48, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: USERNAME Dikgosi Sejabodile

41.77.91.203 (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    education
  2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?
    Yes
  3. What is your academic and/or professional background?
    criminology
  4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.
    YOUR


 Not done Unregistered users cannot be assigned this right -- There'sNoTime (to explain) 11:49, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Follow up from Wiki Education to challenges from spring term

Hi all,

Let me start off with the TL;DR: We're no longer going to support large multi-section classes with TAs, and we've instituted internal monitoring and review processes for courses editing on controversial subjects.

For those of you who want a longer explanation, you may remember we had some challenges this spring with environmental justice classes at UC Berkeley. It was a large six-section class working on controversial subjects, and it resulted in several incidents. At the time, Wiki Education cleaned up the problematic student work and promised to spend some time in the summer evaluating our course selection processes to see if we could make some changes to head off problems like this from happening again.

There were a few factors that were potentially problematic about the class:

  • It was a large class size (we define this as more than 50 students)
  • It was split into sections led by TAs
  • Students were editing in a controversial subject area

In July, we were grateful to have the professor, Michel Gelobter, join us in our offices to meet in person to discuss the class and what went wrong. We also dug into our records of courses we’ve supported in the last few years, looking at outcomes from large classes, classes split into sections led by TAs, and classes where students edited in controversial subject areas. We’ve supported dozens of courses in each scenario, and so we were able to look for patterns in what we saw. Based on the feedback from Michel and looking at the outcomes from a variety of classes, we have decided to make some changes.

First, we will no longer support extensive Wikipedia assignments in multisection courses where the sections are run by TAs or different instructors, regardless of the course's size. We've found that it's this factor, rather than just the size of the class, which is most likely to contribute to negative outcomes. Communication issues between instructors, TAs, and Wiki Education make these classes particularly challenging to work with, and the quality of content that has come from them does not justify the extra staff time we need to spend on them, nor the rate of incidents with students that community members have brought to our attention. They also become particularly challenging to manage when an incident arises because of the multiple instructors/TAs. We will support these classes only if instructors are asking students to make minor edits (e.g., copyediting, adding references, or adding images).

Second, we will continue to support multisection courses if every section is taught by the same instructor. In such cases, we will treat the class in the same way we do a single-section large class, which involves additional screening and monitoring. We will also continue to support courses with 100 students or fewer with TAs as long as the course is not broken into sections. Note that we still do not support extensive assignments for very large classes of more than 100 students, no matter the number of sections unless the extensive assignment is optional and only a handful of students undertake the larger project.

Finally, we have set up processes internally so that we can provide more oversight to classes working on controversial subject areas. Some of our students have made very well-developed, neutral, well-cited contributions to articles in controversial subject areas. But we need to be better about understanding the community's perspectives and concerns about topic areas students may edit, as well as the intentions and positions of the instructors and students. Thus, we have put a few things into place, including:

  • Internal tracking processes so classes working on controversial subject areas get more staff attention during the term.
  • Increased vetting of topics student editors choose by Wiki Education staff, to better understand the nature of the controversy and ensure students are steering away from the most problematic topics.
  • Automated alerts to staff through our Dashboard software so that whenever a student edits an article that has the discretionary sanction tag on it, we receive an email and can intervene if necessary.

We’re also wrapping up projects to revise some of our training slides and handouts we provide students to ensure that they’re getting the best information possible about how to make positive contributions to Wikipedia.

We greatly appreciate the feedback we've received from community members and welcome any questions or comments you may have about these new guidelines. Improving the quality of Wikipedia content remains our chief goal, and we hope that these new guidelines will ensure that we only support courses well-suited for a Wikipedia assignment, who can help us all on our mission to improve the encyclopedia. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:57, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Ryan, on a quick read that looks very good to me, so a big thank-you to you and the other Wiki Ed people. Something occurs to me that isn't really an issue for Wiki Ed, but rather for the editing community. Although Wiki Ed will no longer support some of the most problem-ridden kinds of courses, that does not mean that such course won't show up and edit without support. The community may need some sort of policy about what to do when that happens. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:06, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
The default would be to treat them as ordinary editors, no more, no less. If they comply with the terms of use and general policy, that is what they are. If they have to be blocked, it would be for the same reasons as for anyone else. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 10:45, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Old education program drafts

Hello educators. I came across User:PreranaD/sandbox, User:PreranaD/Mass Media in Canada (sandbox) and User:PreranaD/Mass Media in Canada which have text which was later used to create an article Mass media in Canada as part of a class assignment. Is there some reason that these old stale drafts should not be blanked? The text is well out of date now.—Anne Delong (talk) 04:49, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be blanked. In order to preserve some aspect of attribution (even though they were all written by the same editor) I've converted all three subpages to redirects. Primefac (talk) 12:18, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Using Personal Interviews

I am a history teacher who is in the process of having one of my classes create an article on our high school. Through this we are using several personal interviews from our principal, superintendent, etc. Whenever I use this they get flagged as not verifiable. Is there a way I can still use these sources for the project?

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by IsaacGoff (talk • contribs) 13:43, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi IsaacGoff only if the interviews are first published elsewhere by a reliable publication, but even then interviews are primary sources and thus of limited value in Wikipedia. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:09, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
  • PLease read WP:COI - it is a bad idea to have your students write about their own high school. Many high schools also don't have significant coverage in reliable sources outside of their very local newspapers, and are very hard to write good articles about. Not a good topic for beginners... Jytdog (talk) 03:08, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
Hi IsaacGoff: we do not allow original research. See Wikipedia:No original research. Neutralitytalk 03:22, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application:Moheen Reeyad

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}

Moheen Reeyad

Moheen Reeyad (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    I'd like to help out on Wikipedia Education program to be an ambassador because I've found that helping new users/editors within a proper guideline. Alongside, I would like to encourage and assist educators and students in working to improve any Wikimedia projects. I already teach some university and school classes to edit Wikipedia.
  2. In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.
    I am an active Wikimedian on several projects (sometimes as SWMT member) since 2010, and currently have sysop rights on Bengali Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons with 76K global edits; additionally serving as an OTRS agent. I am also active in doing Wikimedia offline—working actively for the Wikimedia Bangladesh chapter; where I currently serve as a board member; and involved as a founder of the Chittagong Wikipedia Community, which is a divisional user community of local Wikim(p)edians from Chittagong division under the local chapter.
  3. Please indicate a few articles to which you have made significant content contributions. (e.g. DYK, GA, FA, major revisions/expansions/copyedits).
    I have contributed in many topics on several progects which have no border actually! Created more than 800 articles in total on English Wikipedia, Simple Wikipedia, Bengali Wikipedia, German Wikipedia, and Assamese Wikipedia. Such as, on English Wikipedia: Adelina Gutiérrez, Agrabad, Alice Rohe, Sahana Bajpaie, Is This the Life We Really Want?, Languages of Honduras etc. On Bengali Wikipedia: Taapsee Pannu , Rashid Choudhury , History of the Argentina national football team etc; and several articles which are a bit away from GA status or have been nominated for GA status.
  4. How have you been involved with welcoming and helping new users on Wikipedia?
    As a member of the Wikipedia Welcoming committee, I did like to welcome new users using Twinkle gadget. Most of the time users make several discussion on my talk page for specific help/request, and I try to give the response as best I can. I also available on several IRC channels and mailing lists for help out the newcomers. Additionally, I make support and trained some of the new users in virtually and real-life.
  5. What do you see as the most important ways we could welcome newcomers or help new users become active contributors?
    There are lots of policies and guidelines, though sometimes it comes out much complicated for the new users. As per my experiences, I feel that these should be simpler versions to understand and to make it easier for inexperienced/new users! So, I think it's easier to adopt them for the guidance.
  6. Have you had major conflicts with other editors? Blocks or bans? Involvement in arbitration? Feel free to offer context, if necessary.
    I had no major conflicts with other editors and involvement in arbitration. Yes, I have been blocked for a while on English Wikipedia in 2013, because of my misunderstanding about IP sharing in Wikipedia; but It was expired a long time ago.
  7. How often do you edit Wikipedia and check in on ongoing discussions? Will you be available regularly for at least two hours per week, in your role as a mentor?
    I edit Wikipedia pretty much regularly in more than 8-10 hours, and definitely why couldn't spare a few hours a day for this task?
  8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?
    To make sure it, I would use Wikimedia Tool Labs's Duplication Detector / Earwig's copyvio dectector. For violating Wikipedia's fair-use image policy, I'd check first Exif file information and check them via TinEye or Google Image tools.
  9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?
    Remove the Copyvio ASAP and contact with the student individually. I would like to give a basic about Wikipedia's copyright rules and try to explain what is the copyright violation, and how easy to avoid it. Also, I would advise to prevent themselves from making copyright violations in the future.
  10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.
    Copyright violations are the use of works protected by copyright law without permission from the copyright holder, i.e. download an image from Google and uploading it as a free image on Commons, or uploading a fair-use image in Wikipedia as a free image.
  11. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    I organize, conduct, evolved and lead several outreach programs such as Edit-a-thon (online, offline both) and Wikipedia workshops. As a part of Bengali Wikipedia 10th Anniversary Celebration (2014-2015), I conducted and lead several School Program in Bangladesh.

~Moheen (keep talking) 21:38, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

  1. --Kritzolina (talk) 07:13, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
  2. I'll add a second endorsement. I don't think that the various ambassador programs are all that active anymore, but this user is experienced and clueful, and we have a genuine need for more communication with inexperienced student editors in that geographic area. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:07, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

 Done -- There'sNoTime (to explain) 11:50, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Ed Dashboard no longer tagging userpages?

I've noticed that some users, who are obviously students in the Wiki Ed program, do not have their user pages tagged as such. An example is Ameliacanas, who is a part of Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Boise State University/Introduction to Media (Fall 2017) and has edited the course page. – Train2104 (t • c) 00:23, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Train2104: There are a few reasons why the tagging sometimes fails. Occasionally, a student with a bad username gets hard blocked, which means all edits from the dashboard are blocked until the block is changed. There are also occasionally network errors the cause an isolated edit to fail, or intermittent problems with the Wikimedia servers. The dashboard only currently attempts the userpage edits once (and only tries them in the first place if the student enrolled themself in the class, rather than the instructor adding their username for them), so a few students end up without the expected templates.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:35, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

User:TeamWetware

Hey educators--see the user page. Apparently the instructor is telling them to work in teams, which is fine--but they shouldn't share an account, of course. Your help is appreciated. Drmies (talk) 00:47, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

ACTRIAL's impact on student assignments

Right now, we're running the six-month ACTRIAL. It was announced at WP:VPT, but I decide to re-announce this here. How would the ACTRIAL impact student assignments? What will teachers and students who find out about the trial do about the temporary restriction on article creation? --George Ho (talk) 07:08, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Most students I see start off by drafting. I don't think this will have a significant impact. – Train2104 (t • c) 11:02, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
For the students Wiki Education works with (in the United States and Canada) it shouldn't be an issue. They should already be creating an account, going through training, and making sandbox edits over a period of time that would take them to autoconfirmed status, before creating a new article. So a message from a student that they ran into an ACTRIAL-related issue is more of a red flag that they skipped some steps in the process. :) --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:07, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

new (small) student assignment project, starting this week

Hi! I'm an old-timer -but inactive- wikipedian from es.wikipedia,org (very active for a few months, first in 2004, then again in 2010). Improving Wikipedia via assignments has always interested me, and indeed I was actually also a little involved in the early wikiversidad/wikiversity, back in 2004. I'm starting a small thing in the next few days: 40 Master students (Theoretical and Computational Chemistry), in groups of 5/6, and each group only editing a small article, so only 7/8 articles involved. My subject is tiny (6 hours!), and so will be the homework, so once the deadline comes near they won't edit for very long (unless they like the community and decide to stay on their own!). I understood (and heartfully agreed with) the pillars of Wikipedia from my first time here, so I think this will be non-problematic: the priorities of Wikipedia go first, so they will do all work on their user pages/sandboxes and only edit the real text (if at all, since this will not be required for grading) once I have verified its quality. Additionally, the class I coordinate is not about Chemistry but about Writing and Communication, so also from that point of view my priority is their ability to craft high-quality, concise texts, rather than quantity. Since I've been gone for such a long time, I only knew about WP:ASSIGN and outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org yesterday (we're in Europe, so this is the one we should use, right?). I'll be preparing a course page today and tomorrow and have the students sign in on Thursday. Is there anything else I need to urgently take into account? Thanks! 4lex (talk) 06:04, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Welcome back, 4lex. I mentioned earlier that WP:ACTRIAL is still active for six months. If your students are new to Wikipedia and either plan to register or already have registered recently, they must know that, during the trial, "autoconfirmed" status is required if they want to create new articles. But, as said before, the trial lasts six months, so "autoconfirmed" status would no longer be required after the trial ends. However, the requirement might be reinstated if the consensus approves. George Ho (talk) 06:45, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
Thanks! I can see the general impact of this, I think. In our case, if, as planned, they only create new content on their own user space, and later on use this content to improve already-existing articles, there is no conflict, or am I misunderstanding something? 4lex (talk) 10:11, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
@4lex: Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on some best practices for Wikipedia assignments. The Programs and Events Dashboard can be very helpful indeed. If you haven't yet, I'd recommend taking a look at the training modules, which are a great introduction to editing. TFlanagan-WMF will probably have a better idea of the resources available and people active in the Education Program in Spain. There are a number of PDF/handout resources on Commons in this category: Category:Wikipedia Education Program handouts. Some of them are more up-to-date than others. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:46, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks again. It's so easy to recall why I loved it here: I leave for 7 years, come back, it's not even the same location and people still make me feel at home :) I created the course here: University_of_Valencia/XIIthTCCM-CS. I don't really know the tools I will be using, though, so I'll still be welcoming advice. I'll try to play around a bit tomorrow, and keep reading some more on the pitfalls to avoid. I do think I understand how to behave around here (as in: be useful rather than troublesome/disruptive). My only real worry is that it's 40 people I don't know and which I will meet only briefly, meaning I can't predict their reactions and personality, and I'll only have a limited influence on their behavior... 4lex (talk) 20:31, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application: Seppi333

Seppi333

Seppi333 (talk · contribs)

  1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    I edit articles on a wide range of topics on Wikipedia (primarily articles involving topics in neurology/neuroscience, pharmacology, molecular biology, medicine, psychology, statistics, and econometrics) and the talk pages of a number of articles I've worked on are regularly tagged as topics for student assignments. Consequently, I already interact with student editors directly or indirectly by revising their work every semester. Moreover, one article that I've worked on extensively was originally created as a part of a class assignment; since that article was fairly well-written and reasonably comprehensive when I came across it, I know that there's a lot of potential for quality content creation by student editors provided that they have the right guidance on how to do it. For medical articles like that one, the main thing that I think students need to focus on is the quality/nature of the sources that they cite (i.e., they need to be sure that they cite medical reviews), provided they already know the basics of editing.
    Anyway, to answer this question succinctly: I'm applying to be an ambassador in order to facilitate the attainment of my primary goal as a Wikipedia editor, which is to improve the accuracy and overall quality of health information on Wikipedia.
  2. In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.
    See:
  3. Please indicate a few articles to which you have made significant content contributions. (e.g. DYK, GA, FA, major revisions/expansions/copyedits).
    Amphetamine (>1600 edits, FA-class), Adderall (~300 edits, GA-class), beta-Hydroxy beta-methylbutyric acid (~400 edits, awaiting GA review for what seems like a year), and Neurobiological effects of physical exercise (~400 edits, a B-class article that was originally created as a student assignment). A number of others can be found here.
  4. How have you been involved with welcoming and helping new users on Wikipedia?
    I tend to welcome new users that I encounter provided that they've contributed useful content to an article; for those who make disruptive edits, I just use a warning template via twinkle.
  5. What do you see as the most important ways we could welcome newcomers or help new users become active contributors?
    I'm not so sure about how to motivate new users to become active contributors; but, in terms of welcoming new users, based upon personal experience, welcoming new users and talking to them (e.g., providing constrictive feedback on their editing) instead of simply leaving a preformatted welcome template on their talk page and going on one's merry way seems to make a noticeable difference; the new editors I've given feedback to have usually been receptive.
  6. Have you had major conflicts with other editors? Blocks or bans? Involvement in arbitration? Feel free to offer context, if necessary.
    I'm not sure what qualifies as a "major conflict", but I've had a number of arguments with various editors (who hasn't?). Doc James can attest to this since I've had more arguments with him than any other editor. I've never been involved in arbitration or been banned. I have been caught in a hard block on my home IP due to different circumstances (e.g., my former roommate vandalized an article and my current IP address is an open proxy), but my account has never been blocked.
  7. How often do you edit Wikipedia and check in on ongoing discussions? Will you be available regularly for at least two hours per week, in your role as a mentor?
    I'm usually on Wikipedia for at least several hours every day. I could obviously commit some of that time to this role.
  8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?
    Earwig's Copyvio Detector and ensuring that any content that was reused from an external source was either released into the public domain or CC-BY-SA-3.0 compliant.
  9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?
    It depends. If they plagiarized another person's work, I'd censor the content in the article (<!-- -->) and inform them that they need to rewrite the material in a manner that doesn't closely paraphrase the material (i.e., the rewritten material isn't a superficial difference in wording relative to the original text). If they encountered an issue where their own copyrighted work on Wikipedia was plagiarized, I'd advise them to take the same approach as I did when I faced that issue: WT:Copyrights#Extensive plagiarism of Wikipedia by an "academic journal" article - not sure how to deal with this.
  10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.
    In the context of Wikipedia, a copyvio would be a verbatim copying of copyrighted text, copying of copyrighted text with superficial differences in wording, and reproducing/uploading copyrighted images, where:
    • the copyrighted text is not CC-BY-SA-3.0 compliant (note: a number of articles aren't released under GFDL, so I'm ignoring that),
    • the copyrighted images don't have a suitable copyright license (e.g., the license isn't one of the allowed licenses on Commons and the fairly restrictive conditions for fair-use of a copyrighted image don't apply),
    • and the copyrighted images aren't simplistic enough to be ineligible for copyright (e.g., {{PD-chem}}).
  11. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?
    I like pancakes. That's relevant, right?

Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 01:38, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

Need a Course Page for Student project, starting this week

Hi, I am running a student wikipage creation project at LIUC, Castellanza, Italy. This is the fourth year we've run this, and in the past it has resulted in some excellent new pages (not without some issues!). In a past year I had an educational course page. Last year I applied for one and flagged the request on the student draft talk pages, but never heard back about it. Is there anything anyone can do to help me here, so I can just flag the draft pages up as an educational project on the respective Talk pages? Many thanks! Limelightangel (talk) 07:55, 5 October 2017 (UTC)Limelightangel

@Limelightangel: Are you a student or instructor? I'm not seeing any past information where you managed a course - can you provide more information? Normally course pages are set up by instructors. — xaosflux Talk 11:38, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Impacts of student coursework on other editors

I realise that the creation of articles by students for some type of class project is beneficial to Wikipedia and instructional for the students. I am in favour of Wikipedia being used by students to further their education, but I am concerned by how some of their activities impact the rest of the community; in particular, when their activities seem to end up with the articles they have been working on being nominated to GAN or DYK.

With regards to GAN, an article produced by a student may not match up to the GA criteria. In particular, a class on say "Animal behaviour" is likely to produce articles heavy on behaviour and light on distribution, description etc., which is needed to fulfil the criterion 3a "addresses the main aspects of the topic" and 3b "stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail". A conscientious GA reviewer will likely fail their nomination as a result, but even worse, there being a considerable backlog at GAN, the student is likely to have moved on to other coursework by the time the review takes place and there will be nobody available to make any improvements necessary to attain the GA standard. For example, in the "Biology and medicine" section of GAN, a backlog of about ten articles awaiting review suddenly swelled to about forty a few months ago. This is discouraging for other members of the community who find their own nominations waiting for review for much longer periods than they otherwise would.

The situation at DYK is somewhat similar. Students do not have a QPQ requirement when they nominate their articles as they are first time nominators, so their nominations swell the backlog of large numbers of unreviewed nominations. The students do not know the DYK rules and therefore do not conform to them. Thirty or so nominations on some obscure topic (plate tectonics, social insects, etc.) tend to sit around unreviewed for some time, and when they do get reviewed, the students are no longer editing and therefore do not respond to concerns. The course requirement seems to have been nominating their articles for DYK, rather than piloting them through to promotion.

So I am fine with student projects using and contributing to Wikipedia, but find problematic the objective of nominating the articles for GAN or DYK as a course requirement. I would be interested in the views of others. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:56, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

I agree with these sentiments, and many have complained about this in the past. Students can improve articles without nominating them having to be part of the process. I have never seen a student nomination that didn't have serious sourcing and comprehensiveness problems, and I've only ever promoted one (crested auklet), after months of waiting, and after their course had ended. The rest were quick-fails, for various reasons. At the very least, there should be some page that lists what articles the students will work on, so the rest of us can be prepared, before nomination. FunkMonk (talk) 12:40, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
I don't think that GA nominations are appropriate, as the process almost always takes too long. For DYK they do stand some chance of getting through, but almost always after the end of the course, when the student mostly is not interested in responding to concerns. For past plate tectonics pages, DYK is not a course requirement, and students do not nominate the pages themselves, so that it has been me nominating and responding and doing QPQs. So there is no net burden to DYK for that. I agree it should not be a course requirement. It is just a bonus. DYK is something that has a likelihood of passing, and there is no limit on how many someone can nominate simultaneously, (Unlike GA, FA) hopefully there is something hooky enough to say. The main issues that tend to come up are insufficient references, and a separate nominator may not have access to the information the original writer had. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:45, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
I also agree with the views here, and this has, indeed, been a perennial issue with student editing. Any kind of audited content review will work badly unless a student personally chooses to remain an active editor beyond the end of the course (something that is as desirable as it is rare). And it's good that more and more editors are speaking up about it. I encourage editors who are not already aware of it to see WP:NOTTA – and WP:INSTRUCTORS, where DYK and GA are explicitly discouraged. This summer, the WikiEd people have been looking at improving their own resources for class projects, and this issue is one they should make sure that they address, so as to be on the same page as the editing community. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:54, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
Hi all. Several years ago, before I knew better (and before Wiki Ed), I taught a class on Wikipedia that included building an article and sending it through GAN. Four of the six made it through, but only after a good amount of stress for me, the students, and the the Wikipedians. The next time around, we used GA criteria as a rubric of sorts, but everyone was instructed not to go through GAN. :) When I started talking to the folks at Wiki Ed, relating that lesson, I was happy to learn it was already one of their standard practices to discourage instructors from requiring formal assessment processes like GAN or FAC.
Today, we discourage GAN in general, and do not support it being a requirement/graded part of a course. If an instructor/student feels particularly proud of an article, we provide some information for an ungraded extra, but try to communicate to them that it's a difficult, time-consuming process that will require them to remain involved and to keep us involved. When an instructor indicates they may be interested in GAN, the class is automatically flagged to us through the Dashboard.
We likewise mention DYK as a possible ungraded option if instructors/students are particularly proud of an article, but, again, don't want it to be a requirement. When they indicate students might go through DYK, the class is given the DYK handout and the course is flagged for us to keep tabs on. We want instructors to keep us involved in the process to try to avoid typical issues.
Few students send their articles through DYK and even fewer through GAN, and most who do so work closely with experienced instructors and/or Wikipedians. However, I appreciate that when that doesn't happen and many students are submitting articles, it can eat up a lot of time/energy. I do know there was a fairly large class this spring in which students took their articles through both processes, which may have been the impetus for this thread. I wasn't involved myself, but I know that Ian (Wiki Ed) was pinged about it on-wiki, and he and Helaine (Wiki Ed) talked with the instructor to work through the current issues and explain best practices, including keeping us involved. If you do start to see multiple submissions from the same class, perhaps it makes sense to put them all on hold and post about it here. That would ensure we can be in touch with the instructor/class. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:08, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
Ryan, the current training module shows "marguerite" going for DYK as well as GA (week 7 slide and week 10 slide).... ?? Jytdog (talk) 06:49, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
As a frequent DYK reviewer, I agree with Cwmhiraeth's sentiments. By the time the nomination is reviewed (up to a month after nomination – or more, if the article is extremely technical), the student is no longer active and it's left to other DYK volunteers to address the issues. Perhaps it would be a good idea to put a 2-week limit on responding to the DYK review, after which the nomination would be failed. Yoninah (talk) 08:23, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
Good point, Jytdog. We're starting to talk about training updates now (although most things are on hold during Wikimania), and in the process of updating the timeline (see section above). Most of your comments there are about the instructor orientation rather than the timeline, which is why I've tagged both that section and this one with {{DNAU}} until we can come back to it. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:14, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
I'll echo Jytdog's point that Wiki Ed materials should never imply that DYK/GA should be routine. Another point I'd like to make in reply to editors who feel affected by submissions by students who disappear is that you should always feel free simply to reject student submissions when concerns have not been replied to. Doing so does not remove any student-generated article content, and no editor has a "right" to receive DYK/GA recognition. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:50, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
I wouldn't mention GAN or DYK on Wiki Ed materials at all, it's almost a WP:BEANS situation. If anything, bury it in an FAQ ("Should I submit my articles to GAN/DYK processes?" "We highly discourage it as it is dependent on volunteer time and usually requires student committment beyond the end of the course. However, in some cases it may make sense, please speak with your Content Expert before assigning or suggesting this to your class") – Train2104 (t • c) 23:08, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
It all depends on how the course is structured. Some universities run trimester and I wouldn't recommend them to go through DYK or GA unless someone in the class is already well versed in editing Wikipedia. On the other hand, I do know some that run 6 months for a term. In the latter case I have no concerns if the class puts their articles through DYK process at 3 or 4 month mark. OhanaUnitedTalk page 15:51, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm very glad to see this timely discussion and endorse the views and experiences of other GA and DYK editors, along with the practical and sensible replies of the WIKI Ed staff. I hope that these attitudes will be embedded in future courses. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:34, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

As I see it, we cannot stop any editor from nominating for DYK/GA, and the criteria may be useful for educational purposes, but we can ask the instructors not to even suggest the possibility of actually nominating the articles. That should be left to the student editor as it is left to any other editor. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 10:33, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

I added a DNAU tag to this section a while back pending an update. We're still in the [long] process of updating materials (instructor training is still in progress), but we've talked about this matter of DYKs and GAs quite a bit now. It looks like the primary impetus for this section was a class which did not indicate to us that all students would be going through DYK, but which then did. In general, however, we bring up DYK and GA in the training because we want to know who will be attempting these processes (which instructors often discover on their own anyway). When someone indicates interest, the class is flagged to us. Importantly, this is so that, in most cases, we can discourage them making it part of the assignment, and to ensure it's not part of students' grades (a condition that we will not support). In other words, by telling instructors about DYK/GA up front, we can intervene to ensure it's done responsibly, discourage it in many cases, and/or monitor submissions in others. When coached properly, there have been many students and instructors who have finished the class with DYKs and GAs. "Many" is relative, though, since it's uncommon they're attempted at all an even more uncommon that they're attempted without us knowing about it. As with any situation in which a class engages in an activity when we don't know about it, we can only try to then intervene with the instructor, try to help with any ongoing on-wiki issues, and try to take measures to avoid it happening again. If you see students submitting articles to DYK/GA -- or, even more importantly, if you see it built into an assignment -- please let us know here and/or ping the Content Expert linked from the course page. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:19, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Talk page blanking by student editors via dashboard.wikiedu.org

Today there was a brief flood of edits via dashboard.wikiedu.org that blanked article talk pages and replaced them with just a course assignment template. This was due to a bug, now fixed, that treated API failures the same way as blank pages, combined with a edit job queue that had built up because a process needed to be restarted: when I restarted the job queue processing, it resulted in a large number of edits and API activity in a short time, which resulted in hitting a rate limit for fetching page content, which in turn led to treating article talk pages as already blank, even though they were not. The dashboard had never hit that kind of rate limiting before, so this bug stayed hidden until now. Apologies for the disruptive edits! Wiki Education staff have cleaned all the ones that other editors didn't fix already. --Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:26, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Enrollment Bugs

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T166109

Hello is anyone from wikied able to get a dev to check in to phab:T166109, it was just reported again on WP:VPT. — xaosflux Talk 12:12, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

@Ryan (Wiki Ed): perhaps? — xaosflux Talk 14:03, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Wiki Education hasn't used the MediaWiki course page extension in a couple years, since developing the Dashboard as its replacement, and I'm afraid that's not an error I'm familiar with. I don't think there's active development/support of the extension, especially since the Dashboard became available for anyone to use (as the Programs & Events Dashboard). Some still use it, but I think the idea is to try to guide people to use the Dashboard instead. Pinging TFlanagan-WMF, who may want to take a look at the issue, and also to confirm that this is advice he would give as well. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:29, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
Also pinging VMasrour_(WMF), since I'm told Tighe may be unavailable. :) --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:14, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks - may be time to sunset the Courses modules here after all.... — xaosflux Talk 14:48, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T169676
Next year I will try the new system. Perhaps the old interface could get a media wiki change to recommend/link to the new system. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:28, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Dashboard timeline revisions

Hi all,

In recent months, there have been a few discussions in which people made suggestions regarding the tools and materials Wiki Ed uses to support instructors and students editing Wikipedia. Since the discussions came up during the time when students are most actively editing, we pledged to return to them over the summer.

This week we begin the first phase of this process, looking at how the Dashboard timeline could be improved. The timeline acts as a sort of extension of a class's syllabus, breaking the assignment into a series of steps, incorporating milestones and supplemental assignments, linking to training and other resources. Please note that the timeline does not itself include the training or handouts, which will be the subject of subsequent threads.

An overview of the Dashboard timeline:

When an instructor creates a course on the Dashboard, they go through a series of steps to generate a timeline. Anyone so inclined can go through these steps by logging into the Dashboard using OAuth, though first-time users (almost always new instructors) have to go through an orientation. Here's the gist of the steps it involves: entering basic information about the course, selecting an assignment type (the standard "create or expand an article" can be supplemented or replaced by smaller assignments like an article critique, copyediting, or contributing to Commons), questions about assignment specifics like whether students will work in groups, and options for additional off-wiki assignments like a blog or reflective essay.

If you would just like to see a timeline with nearly every module included, here is an example on our Dashboard testing site.

Though any feedback regarding the timeline is appreciated, at this time we are looking for ways the text and/or organization of material could be improved in the timeline, rather than adding new technical features, etc.

Pinging users involved in semi-recent discussions. Apologies if I omit anyone, and please let me know if you would rather not be pinged in the future. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:36, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

  • That's a lot of work, thanks. I didn't study it carefully but it looks good at a cursory pass. I only looked at the timeline example. In week 6 that imagines students will move their work from sandboxes to mainspace. Somewhere in all the materials, have you warned students about 3RR and interacting with regular eds? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:52, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
Super. Look forward to looking back after a couple years. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:48, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Ryan, thank you very much for doing this, and yes please continue to ping me throughout these discussions. What I've done is to read carefully the Dashboard testing example page. I did not attempt the creation process, and I did not click through to any of the links on the example timeline page.
  1. Week 2, the optional line in the evaluation section: Whether it's on the timeline or somewhere else, students should have guidance on how to format their talk page comment, particularly in terms of putting it at the bottom and not the top, and in using an appropriate section header. Also, before getting to that stage, they will need to have indicated to editors reading that talk page that they are part of a class assignment, probably by putting the template at the top of the talk page. Also, remind them to watchlist that talk page.
  2. Week 3, images: If they upload a file to Commons, they should watchlist the file page and set their preferences at Commons to get an email if someone else edits the file page.
  3. Week 3, choosing a topic: I don't know if it goes here or elsewhere, but we need to start actively guiding students and instructors away from topics where there are discretionary sanctions. For me, this is a big deal.
  4. Week 4, thinking about WP: When asking what they think about our definition of "neutrality", perhaps you should blue-link to WP:NPOV, even if that's also done elsewhere.
  5. Week 6, moving work to WP: About "copy text from your sandbox", that line sounds like copying and pasting the entire sandbox, contrary to the two bullet points before it. Maybe change to "copy pieces of text from your sandbox". The wording also sounds like the review beforehand is "peer review", meaning other students, but I would really want either the instructor or the WMF Content Expert, and not just fellow students, to check it first.
  6. Week 7: Does DYK really work well here?
Those are all the nitpicks that I could find. Overall, it looks excellent! --Tryptofish (talk) 19:44, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
  • OK, I hope this doesn't screw anything up by signed up an instructor, and am going through the orientation: I am going to offer comments and suggestions for each page of the instructor orientation. Please feel free to ignore, or use, as you like. I am writing too much and more than you will probably use, to try to get the feel across....
    • at "what we will cover. The last paragraph here says: "You might want to complement this overview by taking the student training later on. That way, you’ll learn greater details about editing, and see the Wikipedia training for your students." About this... I think it might be good to say something here like: "If you have never edited Wikipedia or only edited a little, please be aware that there is a learning curve to editing Wikipedia well, especially for sophisticated topics. We encourage instructors to get experience editing Wikipedia themselves before they try to lead a class into Wikipedia; an inexperienced instructor leading inexperienced students into Wikipedia can become very difficult. If you do choose to go forward, please do be aware that both you and your class will have a lot to learn about editing Wikipedia - this self-awareness is essential for a successful class effort" Something like that.
    • at the first pillar slide. What is lacking here, is that the mission of Wikipedia is to provide "the public with articles that summarize accepted knowledge" in a community of editors that any one can be part of. (per WP:NOTEVERYTHING That is not here.
This would be a great place to say something like: "the mission of Wikipedia is to provide "the public with articles that summarize accepted knowledge" in a community of editors that any one can be part of. The community has built a set of policies and guidelines that govern content and behavior, and they take some time to learn. We understand that you are teaching a class and that you have goals in mind for what you want your students to learn and do; your students will also have their own goals. Please be aware that inside Wikipedia, you and your students become Wikipedians, and Wikipedia's mission and the policies and guidelines come first inside Wikipedia. You are very welcome here! But please understand you are entering a different environment."
    • at pillar 2. Sources are mentioned last here. This is kind of upside down, especially for new editors. I suggest this read something like:
Wikipedia content has a neutral point of view. This means, that content in Wikipedia needs to reflect what reliable sources say - giving "weight" (space and emphasis) to what they say. Students should not use Wikipedia to advocate for or against any perspective that they have; Wikipedians are guided by passion to work on whatever topic they choose, but content is guided by sources, not personal opinion. As editors, students need to access the highest quality sources they can find, and read and consider them, and generate content that summarizes those sources. Using adjectives and adverbs is generally a bad thing. Neutral writing is plain, and in plain English as much as possible."
    • on the next slide, the word "balance" is deadly. Please avoid that word, as too many people come to WP thinking NPOV = "give all sides equal weight". Like the Fox News motto, "fair and balanced". This page is otherwise great.
    • civilty and the next one This one, is one of the most difficult. Many students and teachers don't understand that WP is not a bubble-extension of their classroom and of school, and they come expecting Wikipedia to be like that - a scenario in which students do their homework in private, and teachers get content directly from students without anyone changing it in the meantime. Other people editing student content feels invasive and downright rude to them. I can't tell you how many exasperated messages I have gotten from students and teachers lecturing me about civility, because they were offended they I edited or removed content. Do you know what I mean here? This is in my view one of the most important preconceptions that lead to people having bad experiences, and that the Education Program needs to overcome to help people have successful ones.
Most of this page is quite good, but I would tweak it like this:
Civility is a core tenet of Wikipedia. Basically, it calls for people to be nice and focus on the work. This is not about being "nicey nice", it is really about not being a jerk and having that get in the way of getting things done. We want to get things done here - get content written and maintained and not get hung up on interpersonal disputes. So just try to avoid doing things that create unproductive friction.
It is very easy even for experienced Wikipedians to get frustrated when disagreements with other editors arise (working in a community is always a test of character), and this can be exacerbated when students have deadlines and feel like their edits must "stick" so that their instructor can see them. It also strange for students to have their "homework" changed by someone else, and as the instructor you might find this frustrating as well. Please remember that Wikipedia is Wikipedia, not your classroom, and that once content is in Wikipedia, anyone can edit it. Please also keep in mind that your students (and perhaps you as well) are learning how Wikipedia works. So please give things time, and listen, and try to learn how Wikipedia is works. If everyone is pursuing Wikipedia's mission and following the policies and guidelines, consensus can usually be reached. It does take time, sometimes. When a student’s work is questioned or removed, they should work with the Wikipedian who edited the information to reach a consensus for moving forward.

Every article has a Talk page where Wikipedia editors discuss changes. This is where students can propose edits, ask questions, and get feedback."

    • be bold --this is one where you might want to add a brief note about choosing the article carefully... just something brief.
    • IAR slide. Hm. The first couple of paragraphs are a bit misleading here, especially for new editors, and especially for editors coming with such a strong COI. Something like:
The Wikipedia editing community has been around for almost twenty years, and the community has developed a strong culture around the mission, the policies and guidelines, and many other unwritten norms, and they cover everything from tiny details like how we format comments on Talk pages, to very large issues like protecting the privacy of living people . All of this, is what has made Wikipedia possible. The core of this pillar, is that what matters the most, is the spirit of the mission and the policies and guidelines. This is the glue that holds everything together, as well as the grease that allows us to avoid having the same disagreements over and over again, so we can actually get work done. IAR exists to help us avoid getting trapped in the details or "wikilawyering" in arguments; it is not an excuse to be sociopathic. Please do take time to learn and understand the mission, policies, and guidelines. The "rules" do matter, but their details are not the most important thing, and please remember that Picasso learned to draw before he began ignoring all the rules.


    • notability. First paragraph very much needs changing: "As students create new articles on topics relevant to your field, it may not be immediately clear to other Wikipedians that the topic warrants a Wikipedia article." This assumes that the students actually got it right. They very well may not have. Right? "If students create new articles as part of their classwork, they may make a mistake and create an article that is not "notable" and gets deleted. The mission of Wikipedia is defined in What Wikipedia is not (this is where you find the "summarizing accepted knowledge" mission statement). NOT also defines many things that Wikipedia is not, and many topics fall outside what the community has determined to be "encyclopedic content".
The rest of it is fine
    • OR. This is fine. If you choose to use bits of what I wrote above in the first pillar slide, this would be a great place to echo that, saying something like " As we noted at the first pillar, everything in Wikipedia needs to summarize what reliable sources say. It follows, that adding content to Wikipedia that is a student's own thoughts or analysis, is not acceptable in Wikipedia." Something like that. It would also be very useful to note here, something like: "Many students and instructors are used to working in the classic essay format, where the student presents a thesis, provides three pieces of evidence, and then summarizes the and restates the thesis. This is not how encyclopedia articles are written. Students should not bring their own theses into Wikipedia and they should not assemble arguments - this is a form of original research that we call "synthesis" - Wikipedia content can only present an argument that is published in a reliable source, and the content must summarize the argument, not make the argument. The work here is not creative thought, but rigorous identification of the best sources, and accurately and neutrally summarizing them."
    • COI. I would love it if this said: "As noted earlier, you have goals for your class, and your students have goals about getting a good grade from you and ultimately graduating. Please be aware that inside of Wikipedia, these are "external interests" for both you and your students, that can sometimes themselves constitute a COI and get in the way of building great content. If students and classes remember that inside of Wikipedia, the mission of Wikipedia and the community policies and guidelines are what matter first and foremost, these problems can be alleviated. It will also be very helpful if you do not grade students on what content remains in Wikipedia. Students who believe that their edits must remain in order to get a good grade, are operating under a terrible conflict of interest within Wikipedia, end up behaving badly trying to satisfy this external interest, and can be blocked from editing. This is not good for anyone. Please make it clear to students that their grade does not depend on their content remaining in Wikipedia."
    • not much to say on the assignments types, but I want to say that I love critique an article. I was delighted to find this: Students perform a literature review in a given topic, then compare their findings to Wikipedia. I have never seen that done, not once. And if students actually did this, and presented the sources they found when they did their literature review, as well as where they see gaps or UNDUE weight in an article, this would be amazingly valuable. Again, I have never seen anyone do this. Would love to.
    • going through the example of creating an article. this page says "Marguerite knows she’ll be graded based on her Wikipedia contributions and other class assignments." Yikes!!
    • i don't understand the emphasis here and here about getting things moved to mainspace urgently, and on the 2nd page there, I think going for a DYK so early on, is a bad idea. These kinds of "feathers" that people try to get, become weird status symbols, and have nothing to do with the mission, really. Most importantly, people need to learn how to walk before they can run. The bell curve being what it is, most contributions will not be very good and most people will have things blow up in their face if they move to mainspace too quickly. I am concerned that the discourse is setting most people up to get disappointed and frustrated.
this slide says nothing about other editors making dramatic changes to the article, but rather treating it like it is "Marguerite"'s article - like she actually owns it. This very much plays into the frame-of-mind that students bring into Wikipedia, and is something the training material should be working against, and not re-enforcing. And this module ends with Marguerite going for GA status. Zoiks. Somebody exceptional could maybe achieve all this, but this is not a good example to teach with, in my view.
the grading slide is... interesting. All the bullets make sense to me except the last one. "Quality of main Wikipedia contributions, as described in the student’s reflective essay". (Is the student self grading?) But more importantly... and please go slow here as this is really central. If the student is trying to work within WP under WP's policies and guidelines, then the quality being graded on should relate to those standards (how well did the content comply with RS, V, NPOV, etc). If the teacher is grading toward some other standards, then the teacher is driving students to violate the policies and guidelines. Do you see what I mean? This needs to be handled really, really carefully. This is probably one of the key place where things when awry with EJustice last spring.
OK, I don't have an interest in looking at the translation or add an illiustration assignment, so I am done.
That was a ridiculous amount of commentary and amount of detail in the analysis, I know. Jytdog (talk) 04:36, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't have time to review the whole thing, and I've forgotten which discussion I participated in that would have put me on the ping list :) But if you want a general opinion, I think the most common problem with student editing (admittedly a biased sample of what I happen to notice) is not that they're unfamiliar with Wikipedia mechanics, but simply that they don't know their topic well. They tend to get a lot of templates and talk page lectures and whatnot, but the underlying problem isn't "you used a primary source and should have used a secondary one" or "your references aren't formatted right" or whatever, it's that they don't know enough about the subject to choose a source other than "I Googled and this is what I found" or "it was in the course reading list". I know that this is supposed to be the "how to edit Wikipedia" component and the instructor is responsible for content, but I really think that part of the guidance for instructors should encourage them to get students to write about parts of the course they've mastered, rather than content they'd never heard of till last week's lecture.

On the stuff in the timeline...

  • The account registration part should mention that a) students should identify themselves as part of a class on their userpage, and b) they should be careful about using their real names as usernames.
  • I like the "evaluate Wikipedia" idea - this is actually a really effective way to engage people who are still learning the material themselves - although IIRC some people find the resulting talk page posts annoying. (I don't really get this; people post this stuff on talk pages all the time. The downside is that in all likelihood, nobody except the other students will ever read it.)
  • I noticed that the "add a citation" assignment in the timeline preceded the "thinking about sources" part, and that seems backwards. Their shiny new citations may well be reverted if they haven't learned much about sources yet, e.g. people show up on medical articles citing something they saw in the newspaper all the time, thinking that's a perfectly good source.
  • Seems worthwhile to teach them about diffs and old versions. A really common antipattern with students is that they think their work is gone and won't be graded if it gets reverted or edited over.
  • Elaborate on that point about leads vs introductions. The hallmark of student editing is undergrad-essay-ish intro paragraphs, "Ever since the dawn of time, humans have wondered about Topic X. [Socrates|Benjamin Franklin|Gandhi] once said, "Topic X is very important."<ref>somequotewebsite.com</ref> Topic X influences everyone's lives in many ways."
  • It may be part of the stated purpose of DYK to encourage new editors, but I would never direct a newbie there, especially a student under time constraints.

Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:30, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

I agree with all that. Jytdog (talk) 18:18, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
Oh, I can't believe I forgot the discretionary sanctions thing! Yes, as Trypto says above, students should be cautious about, and preferably steer clear of, topic areas with active DS (log here). But most especially the problem is in the Palestine-Israel area, which is subject to this arbitration remedy from 2015 prohibiting editing by editors without 30 days' tenure and 500 edits. (For all practical purposes, you must be extended confirmed, which few students will reach.) It isn't practical to manage large numbers of exceptions to this. Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:28, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

@Jytdog: I left the DNAU tag in this thread because you gave a lot of thoughtful feedback about the instructor orientation before we were ready to start the process of updating it and I didn't want to lose it. Student training and the timeline was the priority, but we'll likely be able to make minor changes to the instructor orientation soon. This message is just to let you know that I'm removing the DNAU tag (this page is getting a little long), but I've gone through your feedback in detail and have pulled some concrete suggestions as well as topics for discussion from your notes. I'll give you a heads up when we follow through. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:44, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 15:49, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Article evaluations

Please remind students explicitly that article evaluations belong in sandboxes, and that only completed articles are to be moved to mainspace. I must have moved back over a dozen article evaluations since this semester started. – Train2104 (t • c) 03:10, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

@Train2104: The typical thing students are instructed to do is to complete their evaluations in their sandboxes and then, optionally, to choose 1 or more questions/comments from that evaluation to post to the article's talk page. The idea is that, while article evaluations are typically appropriate talk page use, making it both selective and optional should minimize the number of unhelpful comments/questions. Sometimes individual instructors will edit the assignment to, say, make it mandatory, but these should be the exception and should be visible on the class's talk page. I know this came up here a few months back, but I don't think there has been a consensus that article evaluations by students should not be permitted in article talk pages, but it's possible I have missed something elsewhere, perhaps regarding new users in general? We've thrown around a few ideas based on subpages and transclusions, but nothing so far that wouldn't make for pretty non-standard talk page use, as well as a rather cumbersome technical implementation. Would love to get your thoughts on possible ways forward. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:52, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
@Ryan (Wiki Ed): I'm not referring to talk pages, I'm referring to mainspace. A couple examples: [2] [3] – Train2104 (t • c) 17:05, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
@Train2104: Ack! I misunderstood. Not sure why that's happening. I see that those two are from different classes. In the dozen that you've moved, have you noticed a trend in particular classes? Pinging Shalor (Wiki Ed) about this, too. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:13, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
@Shalor (Wiki Ed): Not exactly article evaluations, but I just moved back a few more pages that didn't look anything like articles. I strongly suggest that the training material be updated so that the students are advised to seek permission (either from Wiki Ed or their instructors/TA's) before moving anything. – Train2104 (t • c) 01:19, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

George Mason University

students keep creating essays that don't even pretend to be articles on their user sandboxs. Some do pretend to be articles. And I've been deleting then per U5.03:58, 16 October 2017 (UTC)Dlohcierekim (talk) 03:58, 16 October 2017 (UTC) Someone, for instance, submitted this via AfC-- User:Idlc123/sandboxDlohcierekim (talk) 04:14, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Dlohcierekim: Thanks. It doesn't look like a class we're aware of/working with, but we can certainly try to reach out to the instructor to bring them on board. Could you link to the page(s) that indicate the school? Or, if that information is in the deleted pages, was there anything else to go by (class name, for example)? --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 05:28, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, @Ryan (Wiki Ed): here's one (User:Clauritzen/sandbox‎). I detagged so it will not be deleted before you see it. — Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:33, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
This one: User:Clauritzen/sandbox. The other is deleted. Thanks, Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:36, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
PS. There is this link. https://oai.gmu.edu/the-mason-honor-code-2/ Interstingly, it says page not found. — Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:37, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Looks like the course is IT 104 (Intro to Computing), possibly lecture section DL1 (meaning "distance learning?"), at least based on the page at User:Clauritzen/sandbox. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 05:59, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
I've emailed the professor at George Mason for IT104 to let her know about this discussion.Naraht (talk) 13:50, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks all. Pinging our Outreach Manager, Samantha (Wiki Ed). Naraht if you receive a response, would you mind forwarding it to [email protected]? --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:46, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Ryan (Wiki Ed) I will do so, I was directed to her from a librarian on campus that I called who has a page that indicates she is a reference for the class.Naraht (talk) 16:48, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Naraht what email address did you use? I see 28 course sections listed for IT 104. I'll send a follow up of my own once I can figure out how to narrow it down. The userpages listed above are no longer active so I can't see the course identifying details. -Samantha (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:49, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Samantha (Wiki Ed) - [email protected] - http://ist.gmu.edu/people/detail/kamaljeet-sanghera/

@Samantha (Wiki Ed):. I'm sorry. I will retrive and post here,as I should have in the first pace,23:07, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

IT 104 DL1 is the class.
The school is George Mason University. If there is more I can try to retrieve, please let me know.23:11, 16 October 2017 (UTC)Dlohcierekim (talk) 23:11, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

wiki edu dashboard

If the user page has a link to the WikiEdu dashboard, can I assume they know how to constructively edit?Dlohcierekim (talk) 06:20, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Dlohcierekim: If a user page has such a link, it means they are participating in a course during which they will learn how to constructively edit. That tag is added quite early in the process, but if you follow the link to the course page you should be able to see a timeline indicating where they should be in the training. They typically wouldn't be making any nonminor contributions until they've gone through essential training materials, though. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:39, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
excellent.Dlohcierekim (talk) 19:27, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Concerns about use of Citation Hunt by Education Program students

A few days ago, I was checking my watchlist and found this edit to the French Polynesia article, in which a user replaced a citation needed tag with a circular reference that had copied its text from Wikipedia. I initially thought it was reference spam, but after a bit of digging, I found out that it was a student at the course University of California, Berkeley/Berkeley Interdisciplinary Research Group on Privacy - Coleman Lab (Fall 2017) using Citation Hunt. I'm concerned about the use of this tool by Education Program students. I found the following similar edits from the same course:

Then, the very next day, I found this edit to Kangaroo Island from a student at the course California State University, East Bay/Medical Humanities (Fall 2017). It's a resonable source except it doesn't even mention the 2005 report that is prominently mentioned in the article text.

In general, I'm very concerned about the accuracy rate of these edits (one in six in this case) and the suitability of this tool for newer editors when used outside of their subject areas of study. Even as an experienced editor, I wouldn't feel comfortable adding citations to a random statement in an unfamiliar subject area unless it was very obvious and uncontroversial (for example <randomperson> attended XXX High School). I therefore don't think students should be given the option of using this tool (as they are on the two course pages linked above), or if they do an exercise like this, they should be steered towards subjects they know something about. I'd appreciate any thoughts on this. Graham87 06:15, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Goodness, that sounds like a nightmare even for some of the "older" Wikipedia users I see on a daily basis. Primefac (talk) 11:52, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
@Graham87 and Primefac: is there a better board for this? ANI perhaps. I agree with the concern. Doug Weller talk 13:09, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
Individual usage might be better to bring up at ANI, but I think this is a Village Pump (Tech) sort of situation. Primefac (talk) 13:43, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
@Doug Weller and Primefac: I brought it up here because it's a problem with the education program and their use of the tool, not really with the tool per se ... unless other new editors are encouraged to use it somewhere. I'd hope (but I guess can't be sure) that experienced users who use it would know their own limitations. But then there's the Dunning–Kruger effect ... hmmm. Feel free to move/advertise this discussion wherever you see fit. Graham87 14:13, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
I have no idea how wide-spread the usage is of this script. If it's just within the Ed community, then this is a fine place. The D-K effect was my primary concern with the larger population, but if no one is using it then there's not really an issue. Primefac (talk) 14:15, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
Ah, I've just searched the Wikimedia Blog and found this post that mentions it, which indicates that it's used by new librarian editors as part of the 1lib1ref campaign. That makes a bit more sense to me ... librarians specialise in collating references, after all. I could perhaps see problems with misuse of primary sources from those editors, but I'd hope they wouldn't do edits like the ones I cited above. Graham87 14:21, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
@Graham87: Thanks for raising these concerns here. We added Citation Hunt to an optional element of the assignment timeline (making a small contribution before getting started on something more substantial) about a year ago. We haven't actually received much feedback about it thus far, so this is helpful. We added it because several instructors expressed that they liked the idea of students making small edits to start, but that it was time consuming to find a good opportunity for a citation. By the time they come to the Citation Hunt, students should've already looked through the basic editing and evaluating brochures and taken the training that goes over reliable sources, so there's not really a great excuse for adding something like a circular reference. We don't have room to add much more text to the timeline instructions, but if issues are widespread enough it may make sense to tweak the wording (e.g. to encourage them to click "next" until they find something they can find a high-quality source for). --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:38, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
@Ryan (Wiki Ed): Thanks. That makes sense. I was only suggesting ANI because I've seen educational projects discussed there in the past, mainly because it has a larger audience. Doug Weller talk 18:11, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
@Ryan (Wiki Ed): Thanks, yep, makes sense. I'd take it even further to say that they should have a general familiarity with the types of sources used in that subject area ... I wouldn't expect the average American editor to know which media sources are best in Australia for example. It would also help for them to make sure that the source they've found supports the content. There's so much that could be said in so little space ... Graham87 05:20, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
I also wanted to pop in as one of the main coordinators for #1lib1ref, and concur with @Graham87:: generally we don't see any problems with #1lib1ref, and part of the reason the campaign works so well, is that librarians are super-self aware about sourcing. I also, would argue, that any disruption/mistakes that any one class is doing here, is not all that different than the kinds of mistakes that "{{citation needed}}" or "{{Unreferenced}}" would solicit more generally. These kinds of mistakes, in my opinion, should be prompting questions like "Why don't more of our readers "get" what kind of source material we use?" and "Why don't new editors know what is appropriate to site?". As I have argued elsewhere (slides), Verifiability is something we value quite widely in our community, yet is something we don't communicate very well to our audience. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 17:19, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

I've just found another student editor, this time from the course Lakehead University/Global Africa (Fall 2017), trying to add exactly the same reference to the French Polynesia article that sparked this concern in the first place. Graham87 06:13, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

And I've just checked the course's other edits from the last 24 hours, and found this edit to Arpoador and this one to Gyroscope, which are reasonable. However, this edit to Things Fall Apart just cited a page that copied its text from Wikipedia, which is doubly concerning because it's within the course's field of study. Pinging Shalor (Wiki Ed), because you're the supervisor of that course, and we've discussed these problems previously. Graham87 07:57, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

30K medical studies could be flawed

Not entirely sure where to post this, but it probably affects a lot of references and article space content on biomedical research.prokaryotes (talk) 21:31, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Sometimes it involves semi-private companies that refuse to disclose anything for fear of reputation or financial damage. The biggest factor by far is pride and fear of reputation damage. Another contributing issue is pressure to publish, with researchers not having the time or money to verify their cell cultures adequately before they begin their research.

Over 30,000 Published Studies Could Be Wrong Due to Contaminated Cells

Propose to close/merge Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Incidents to this noticeboard

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
checkYThere is an unanimous consensus to close Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Incidents and redirect the former to the latter.Winged Blades of GodricOn leave 06:00, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

I propose that Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Incidents be made a redirect to this page, Wikipedia:Education noticeboard.

@Jbmurray: established the "incidents" page from the main education noticeboard in November 2013. At the time, the Wiki Education Foundation had recently incorporated and there were many new classes coming to Wikipedia. There was hardly any training and coordination and responding to all the students and classes was impossible with the on-wiki volunteer resources at hand. Wiki Education suddenly brought lots of new classes to Wikipedia, and in fearful anticipation, the community asked them to arrange for notices to appear at the education noticeboard for each class. Since the community had been unable to adequately manage the classes already on wiki, there was great worry that an organization bringing even more classes in could do so without major community disruption. At first it was possible to look at all classes doing Wikipedia projects, but now after 4 years there are so many thousands of students participating at any time that no single human can monitor them all. Wiki Education has since moved all class notices to Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Wiki Ed course submissions because the main noticeboard had become unusable with all the bot notices. So far as I know, no one reads that page just because problems are fairly uncommon and Wiki Education oversees the groups which they recruit to Wikipedia.

Because Wiki Education class notices no longer appear at the main noticeboard, there is not much traffic there. Because of this, I would like to propose a return to Wikipedia noticeboard norms, where there is one noticeboard for any kind of general discussion. The main board and the incidents board should merge to become one discussion forum. If in the future that gets too complicated, anyone can propose to split noticeboards again. Problem incidents of the sort which the incidents noticeboard was made to identify are best on the main page, which is how most noticeboards work.

Also, to confirm, the education noticeboard should be for discussion of any class engagement in English Wikipedia, regardless of country. Wiki Education is focused on the United States and Canada, but from a community volunteer perspective, we support any class in any country which is improving English Wikipedia. Thoughts from others? Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:39, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for proposing, Bluerasberry. From Wiki Education's perspective, we're fine with the change. We monitor both noticeboards now, and you're correct that they're low traffic. Your proposal to merge them, leaving open the possibility to split again in the future if it becomes problematic, makes sense. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:55, 1 September 2017 (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.

Close

I see that the bot archived the proposal to merge WP:ENI into this page, before an outcome was determined. It seems to me that there was a clear consensus to do that, so maybe someone, preferably an admin, should go ahead and enact that. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:35, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

@Tryptofish: I have brought the discussion back here to be closed (preferably with more participants), I will probably drop a note at AN. Alex ShihTalk 04:15, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
@Alex Shih:--The general community does not seem to have excessive (or any?!) interest(s) regarding this proposal and I have closed the proposal as unanimously successful.But, before re-directing the page, I think we ought to list the archives of the incidents page over here.How do you feel?Regards:)Winged Blades of GodricOn leave 06:08, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
@Godric on Leave: Hey, thanks for the close. I think a soft redirect would work better (an merge example that came to my mind was this). I am not sure if it's necessary to move the EN/I archives here, since the "Search Education noticeboard and archives" box at the top automatically searches for archives in the EN/I anyway. I would say just mark EN/I historical, put a notice, and update {{Noticeboard links}}. Cheers, Alex Shih (talk) 06:30, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, all. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:30, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Goes to the defunct Ambassadors page. I wonder if it shouldn't to Wikipedia:Student assignments instead? Jytdog (talk) 20:49, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm probably missing something, but I couldn't find a link called "for volunteers" at the top of this noticeboard. If you are referring to the bullet point for "Ambassador topics (for Online, Campus, or Regional Ambassadors)", I would be fine with simply deleting that line entirely. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:13, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
Mainpage = Wikipedia:Education program - the link "Information for volunteers" there. sorry for being too terse. Jytdog (talk) 02:09, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
Got it, thanks. Yes, I'd support that change in the link. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:20, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
done. Jytdog (talk) 20:01, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Photography assignments... and rejections from the Wikipedia

Dear all:

In keeping with the idea of involving students with the Wikipedia, I have been encouraging some of my journalism students at the Goa University to share (assignment-based) images they have created related to literature, books and authors via Wikimedia Commons.

They have been doing a good job in my view, there is no copyright violation, and I'm sure this would be a useful asset to create and add to pages both in the English Wikipedia and also in smaller, fledgling initiatives like the Konkani Wikipedia [4].

Unfortunately, some bots have been knocking off such content, which is really demoralising to the students who are trying their best. One case in point is Saiee D. on the page below [5] who writes: "I uploaded pictures of printing presses and bookstores in Panjim [Goa]. But though I uploaded more than 16 pics, it went down to 12 and now there are only four remaining. Why are these getting removed, sir?"

Please could you help to encourage well intentioned young contributors? They are our future...

Frederick Noronha 91-832-2409490 On Wikipedia: Fredericknoronha (user since circa 2006)

Hi Fredericknoronha. It doesn't just mean taking the pictures oneself. Books and newspapers are under copyright, so uploading pictures of newspapers and bookcovers (if enough is showing to be recognizable) is a copyright violation. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:53, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
For here at the English Wikipedia, there are important rules that must be followed, at Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria. The requirements at Wikimedia Commons are even stricter, and should best be asked about there. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:14, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Fredericknoronha: Just to elaborate on StarryGrandma's point, there can be multiple copyrights relevant to a single image. If the students created the images, they own the copyright to the images themselves and thus have the right to release the images under a free license on Wikimedia Commons unless there are copyrighted works depicted in their image that they do not own, in which case the owner(s) of those copyrights would also have to agree to the license. Book covers, posters, newspapers, magazines, album covers, etc. are all separately copyrighted.
There are typically two exceptions: de minimis and freedom of panorama. De minimis would apply if the copyrighted work were an insignificant element of the picture, such as a book on a table in a photo of a cafe. Freedom of panorama creates exceptions for pictures of works that are in public view. Freedom of panorama laws vary by country, though. In India, buildings and sculptures are exempt (i.e. if you take a picture of a copyrighted building, the owner of that copyright does not have a claim to your photo) but 2D works like those listed above are not exempt.
As I am not a Commons admin, I cannot see the deleted files, but from the filenames and short summaries of the deletion, it looks like e.g. File:Children's rack at Broadway Book Centre, Goa.jpg was deleted because it depicted book covers, File:Sunaparant Newspaper.jpg because it depicted a newspaper, File:Broadway Book Centre, Panjim - Goa.jpg because it depicted an advertisement, etc. Some others are less clear, and I've asked the deleting administrator for additional information here: commons:User talk:Didym#Recent deletions. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:23, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
And to also elaborate on what Tryptofish said, Wikipedia's rules are less strict than Commons only for very specific purposes. The same copyright rules apply in general. The difference is that all media, without exception, on Commons can be freely used, published, modified, etc. for any purpose. Nearly all of the images you see on Wikipedia are hosted there because Wikipedia is committed to using free content. In rare cases, however, attaining a free image of a subject is impossible. For example, if you would like to display the cover of a book in an article about a book, then you can upload one low resolution version of the book cover for use only in that article, and only if it's not likely that a free version does/will exist. It's extremely limiting, and probably not what you intend for your students in most cases. In short, the same issues apply, but it may be that an image of a copyrighted subject can be used in an article about that subject. Take a look at WP:NFCC for more information on that. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:32, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Dear all: I could take care of any copyright violations. But please could someone help with the somewhat arbitrary deletion of photos? Do I need to alert someone about our students' involvement? Isn't it worth encouraging students to contribute? fredericknoronha (talk) 13:44, 29 October 2017 (UTC) Fredericknoronha

@Fredericknoronha: From the sound of it, the deletion was directly because of the copyrights (books covers, etc.). I'm not sure what yo mean by taking care of the violations, but if there's additional information/context, you could do so by reuploading them.
When it's a clear violation, files are "speedily deleted" (reuploading would not likely solve these issues). When it's less clear, the uploader is notified and given about a week to respond before deleting. If the uploader doesn't respond, they're most often deleted, erring on the side of caution. In this case, there were minor copyright issues, but it sounds like they were deleted for a combination of those minor copyright issues with the low resolution of the images and their missing EXIF data. EXIF data is included in the photo by the camera itself. Often, when a file is missing EXIF data it's because the version uploaded was not the version of the file that came straight from the camera. For example, it was downloaded from a website like Facebook, and thus more likely to be owned by someone other than the person uploading (who would just upload the original). See commons:User talk:Didym#Recent deletions for more information. The admin said the originals of those files could be reuploaded. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:54, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Pesticide poisoning

There are multiple IP accounts editing at that page, who appear to be in an unregistered class project: [6], and who seem to be having a tough time of it, largely because they seem unaware of how things work here. It would be great if WikiEd would look into this and reach out to the class. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:25, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Trypto. These are multiple students in a group (all IPs) without any known class page, so it would be nice to get the professor to go through proper channels. I've let the students know this, but I have no idea if that's going to get through or not. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:30, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
@Tryptofish and Kingofaces43: Thanks. I've left messages on the students' talk pages as well as on a couple other user talk pages they've engaged with. The IPs geolocate to Colorado, and in one of the comments a student said he/she was in an MPH program. Looks like this is the likely program, but which class in particular is unclear. Hopefully someone responds ASAP so we can try to bring them on board. In the meantime, if you see any other clues please let me know (e.g. if the content of the edits, which I've not had an opportunity to dig too deeply into at this point, suggests one of these classes in particular). Thanks. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:56, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Pharmacology course

There appears to a course at University of Kentucky pharmacology school that has a class assignment.

are the ones I have come across so far. Perhaps folks from the education program could reach out to the instructor? Jytdog (talk) 17:55, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

@Jytdog: Not a class on our radar (or an instructor in our contacts). Left messages for the students and may have found a couple others:
--Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:07, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
According to this edit, the professor is Robert Lodder. We'll reach out by email. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:19, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Things to avoid when designing assignments

Generally I think the education outreach is fantastic idea. However, the FAQ and other materials that provide guidance on designing assignments should include a section on Things to Avoid When Designing Assignments. For example, instructors should make certain students do nothing at article talk - zip zero nada - unless the assignment involves sticking around the article to make changes to article text, which may involve back-and-forth dialog with established eds who have the article watch-listed. Per the established talk page guidelines, an article talk page is only for discussions that genuinely seek to improve article text. Collecting drive by homework assignments in the form of suggestions from people who have no skin in the game of article text is outside the scope of article talk. In my view, such homework can be deleted as WP:SPAM because the ed who posts them is WP:NOTHERE to build article text but to check a box off on their class assignment. Students are not acting in bad faith of course but the practice inadvertently abuses the volunteer time being invested by real editors who have the talk pages watchlisted. Here is a current example (apologies for picking on this class and instructor... by this criticism I mean to welcome and improve your course experience and hope you do another in the future!)

  • Week 4 of this course "Evaluate an existing Wikipedia article related to the class, and leave suggestions for improving it on the article's talk page."
  • So far (and its only Monday morning presumably of week 4) at Talk:Climate change this has produced two distinct threads

On one hand many new sets of drive by suggestions may turn up important things to work on. The problem, however, is assigning the posting of a driveby remark is very annoying and sucks enormous time from established eds who expect to engage people who are going to actually work on articles. Alternative 1 Have students post these sorts of suggestions on their own user talk. They can still do peer review/grading of the posted suggestions. Alternative 2 Have students post proposed edits at article talk and have them graded on their follow through, however it unfolds, in the WP:BRD process. Alternative 3 in the example course I am picking on (sorry about that once again) reverse the order of the Week 4 and Week 5, to extent students could first make article edits, and later defend them if they are reverted via BRD process, or if the edits are not reverted, students could find some current WP:RFC, load the debate into their brain, and then cast a well reasoned WP:NOTVOTE. Conclusion There are probably many more alternatives, but I do think we need a Things to Avoid When Designing Assignments section and in that section frown on using article talk to post homework in the form of driveby "suggestions". Unless pagewatchers will receive salary as teaching assistants, then I might feel differently about it.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:09, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

  • Hi NewsAndEventsGuy, I've moved this to the education noticeboard so it can get a more full discussion. (Originally posted here.) Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:31, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
    • This problem has been going on for a long time, and has been discussed at this noticeboard before. Obviously, the problem has not been solved. I agree very much that these kinds of drive-by comments are unhelpful and a time-sink, but I'll also note that, in earlier discussions, some editors have argued that any kind of article feedback is potentially useful and editors who dislike the comments can just ignore them (I personally disagree with that view). I'd be happy to see a clear consensus get established, and then implemented. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:20, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
That said, the question of what to do about unhelpful and/or plentiful article evaluations is a conversation worth revisiting. (for context for those joining in, here is a link to the previous thread).
As it happens, because I misunderstood what Train was asking in a section above, I just commented on this subject, so I'll go ahead and copy that here. :)
The typical thing students are instructed to do is to complete their evaluations in their sandboxes and then, optionally, to choose 1 or more questions/comments from that evaluation to post to the article's talk page. The idea is that, while article evaluations are typically appropriate talk page use, making it both selective and optional should minimize the number of unhelpful comments/questions. Sometimes individual instructors will edit the assignment to, say, make it mandatory, but these should be the exception. I know this came up here a few months back, but I don't think there has been a consensus that article evaluations by students should not be permitted in article talk pages, but it's possible I have missed something elsewhere, perhaps regarding new users in general?
I appreciate these thoughts about other ways forward. We've thrown around a few ideas since you initially raised the issue. For example, having students use talk page subpages, which are transcluded to the talk page for the duration of the course, but haven't found an ideal solution so far that wouldn't be rather cumbersome technically and/or make for non-standard talk page use. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:33, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the link to the archived discussion. It seems to me that a significant part of the problem is not really about whether assignments are required or optional, but instead about students not understanding what distinguishes a helpful talk page comment from an unhelpful one. I tend to see two broad categories of unhelpful comments, and both are far too common. One is hey, you did a very nice job here, good work, typically in the spirit of a quid pro quo of you give me a good review and I'll give you a good review. The other category is either a meta-comment about what we would call the notability of the page topic, such as this is an important subject so it's good that there is an article about it, or book-review style comments about good points and bad points, such as the good things about this page are ABC and the bad things about the page are XYZ. (About the last of those, listing page flaws actually is very helpful, but it makes little sense to point out things that do not need to be revised.) I'd like to see students better understand how to use a talk page productively, and after all, if the assignment is about learning about editing Wikipedia, it really matters educationally that they actually learn this. I'd like instructors to set clear instructions about this, and make those instructions conform to existing community norms, and students be graded on how substantively they took that on, if the comments are in article talk space instead of user space. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:49, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
@NewsAndEventsGuy and Tryptofish: This is something that we removed from the timeline a while ago (I believe it was changed Summer 2016). It was precisely because of this problem that we changed the wording in that section. (You can see the current wording here; we now direct students to do these evaluations in a sandbox. It does come with a cost - the loss of the good that these reviews might bring.
The problem exists because it's possible for instructors to clone older courses. While it's possible for us to manually edit course pages, without knowing the magnitude of the problem, it's hard for me to say more (and obviously not something we should change mid-course). It's certainly worth looking into further. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:00, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
I looked through that link, and I do indeed see where it says, at Week 9, that the peer review should be in a sandbox because it is not done the way that Wikipedia would be doing it. I also notice that the list of things to evaluate in Week 5 actually looks a lot like the unhelpful talk page comments that editors are concerned about here. So I'm getting the feeling that students sometimes create a Week 5-style evaluation and then post it on talk pages instead of in sandboxes, even though they seem to have been told not to. Even though sandbox edits are in user space, they are still on Wikipedia, and it strikes me as odd to tell anyone to write something that is contrary to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, even if it is in a sandbox. I get it, that instructors have good educational reasons for wanting students to work on that kind of thing. But maybe putting it in a sandbox gives the misleading impression that it's OK for Wikipedia. I tend to prefer that any assignment that does not adhere to policies and guidelines should not be posted anywhere here. Better it should be handed in, in class, but not written or posted here. I think that would help students understand better, and would be good for learning as well as for editors here. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:25, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Appreciate this being moved here for wider input. I'm not deep into this project. One thing should be simple- Adding to the first stuff any intstructor sees concise bold statement that

Caution should be exercised when directing students to post to article talk pages. Per the talk page guidelines, such pages are for the exclusive purpose of improving article text. Instructors are encouraged to design course assignments which involve article edits, and potentially followup participation in the WP:Consensus process via WP:BRD procedures at article talk pages. On the other hand, drive-by "review" or "suggestion" comments are ones that are made by editors who have no intention of following through with subsequent Wikipedia processes to try to improve article text. If instructors wish to assign this type of commentary it should be posted at student talk pages or their sandboxes.

The only opposing argument I have heard is that potentially valuable ideas posted in student driveby remarks would be lost. We can solve that without cramming driveby reviews down regular editors throats and robbing them of valuable time. Simply have students include the right template or tags in their one-off comments in their userspace. If they format them correctly with the article name, we should be able to code a log of student name, course, article, and DIFF with the one-off remark, and let the header of the article talk page get an automatic template that such material exists. In this way, its all indexed and eds who want to review such material can easily find it. Sort of like an article specific hashtag "#StudentDriveBy". If these templates and tags do not yet exist, maybe an outline of the desired behavior could be posted to the technical side of VPump or other venue, trying to get help from the coders among us. Thanks for listening. The climate pages are popular target areas for this sort of thing, and that's one of my main interests so I do see this a lot. Hence my effort at reforming the way this is done. Thanks to all of you for your effort on this awesome project! I am a big fan, despite all my words over this one pet peeve. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:29, 16 October 2017 (UTC) NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:29, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

  • An example of this kind of talk page comment just crossed my watchlist: [7]. It's entirely good faith, but I can't see any way for editors who are not students in the class to make any use of it to improve the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:51, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Ed Monthly Report for September 2017

Hi everyone. For those interested, Wiki Education's Monthly Report for September 2017 is now available on Commons as a PDF, on Meta, or on our blog. Please let me know if you have questions. --Cassidy (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:52, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Some assistance needed at my talk page

Please see User talk:Dodger67#"Insufficient context for those unfamiliar": what's missing?, I'd be grateful if you can give some advice to the OP as it's quite outside my comfort zone. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:22, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Please... Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:32, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
@Dodger67: I've responded on your talk page, but looking a bit more it looks like this is a class at Libera Università Carlo Cattaneo. I've asked the student for some information about their instructor. Pinging WMF Education Program folks to see if they could follow up with perhaps some connections in Italy. @TFlanagan-WMF, VMasrour (WMF), and NSaad (WMF): --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:33, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks Ryan (Wiki Ed), I hope your outreach bears fruit as this class seem to be getting stuck at AFC quite a bit. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:09, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm reaching out to WMIT. VMasrour (WMF) (talk) 20:32, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Echoes of WP:India Education Program

I've just placed 2 weeks of ECP on:

due to repeated copyvios resulting from what appears to be a class assignment. As far as I can tell, it's only spread to a few articles so far but I don't know how widespread this is -- I vaguely remember bits and pieces popping up on CopyPatrol. MER-C 12:20, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Probably unrelated, but while we're talking about copyvios and Indian school projects, I should probably draw ENB's attention to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Kaabasane. – Train2104 (t • c) 15:00, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Categorization

One of the things I do is check for article categories that contain non-articles (e.g. pages in the Wikipedia namespace). I'm repeatedly finding that pages such as Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/UMBC/Language in Diverse Schools and Communities (Fall 2017) are being inadvertently placed in article categories. When a talk page (for example) is inadvertently placed in an article category this only needs to be fixed once - however, these Wiki Ed pages are repeatedly being pasted in with the inadvertent category tag (why does this copy-pasting need to be done? has the en wp community given approval to it?). This causes unnecessary work for editors who fix categorization problems as well as potentially confusing anyone using these Wiki Ed pages. Please can you ensure that an appropriate change is made to technology/processes to ensure that adding incorrect references to categories in these pages is stopped. DexDor (talk) 06:30, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

  • This was recently posted to my talk page and I'm going to pass this on to Sage (Wiki Ed), but I wanted to post this here so there's a record of it and to have a better central location for any discussions. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:56, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
    • This happened when a student is assigned a category instead of an article; the dashboard didn't know to treat the links differently, so instead of linking to the article like it ought to, it was including it in the category. I just deployed a fix for this. (The copying of course pages on-wiki is to make sure that Wikipedians can easily find the context for student editors, which other editors are classmates, who the instructor is, etc, using the typical on-wiki tools like 'what links here'. It was part of the working consensus for what was needed in a replacement for the EducationProgram extension in 2014 and early 2015.)--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:33, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Issues with Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Georgia Southern University/Modern Latin America (Fall 2017)

Hello! I'm afraid there have been some serious WP:COPYVIO issues with this course. I'm hoping that the folks here at WikiEd would perhaps provide some more guidance to the students and instructor. Besides the COPYVIO issues there is a quality issue to the articles they are moving into main space. Many of these wouldn't pass at WP:AFC. These articles read more like essays than encyclopedic entries. Of particular note Am12827 just recieved their final warning for COPYVIOs from Oshwah despite multiple warnings on their talk page. I'm a bit disappointed in the lack of oversight this class appears to have. Can y'all address these issues before more work is created for editors like Chrissymad who appear to be cleaning up after this course? --Cameron11598 (Talk) 18:19, 13 November 2017 (UTC)(UTC)

Aside from the CV issues in article creation, there are many instances of cv and walls of essay like text being introduced to existing articles. See addition of essay material here by another student (not faulting them but there needs to be some clear cut rules for this...)CHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 18:25, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the professor of the class. I wish you'd be a little less snarky in your comments about my work with the class. It's the third time I've taught with Wikipedia, and I recently moved to a new institution where students are clearly struggling to conform to Wikipedia standards. Like you, I'm trying to think about how to do a better job in preparing students to become Wikipedia editors. And now I feel quite discouraged that my students and I will be publicly shamed for our efforts. I'm doing the best I can and have carefully attempted to walk students through the protocols of using Wikipedia. It's a bit discouraging when you act like we're just creating problems for you as the 'cleanup crew.' I await more productive dialogue.Cz17 (talk) 20:00, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Cz17 Perhaps I missed it, but I don't see any "snark." I'm sorry you find it discouraging but there is no wiggle room for copyright violations. CHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 20:13, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
Professor, copyright violations are an issue we have with many student classes. The rules are pretty simple: treat Wikipedia the same as you would as an academic paper in terms of academic integrity, and do so for every edit that is submitted. If your students do this, then they will have no problem with copyright. If your institution offers a course or unit on plagiarism as many do now digitally, it might be worth requiring your class to go through it again. While something can be plagiarism without being a copyright violation, and vice versa, typically if you follow the plagiarism rules, you don't have to worry about text copyright. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:18, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

I do not find it discouraging that Wikipedia has no wiggle room for copyright violations. That is as it should be. I had more of a problem with the "coming out swinging" attitude but I have heard that this can be an issue among Wikipedia editors. Not a problem, I am now in conversation with Shalor and thank you for your contributions to the Wikipedia community. Cz17 (talk) 20:45, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

@Cz17: Some editors take copy right violations way too seriously (myself included), as it can effect Wikipedia's safe harbor status under DMCA. As to the dealing with the issues publicly one of Wikipedia's philosophies is transparency that is why our talk pages are public. I brought the issues to this noticeboard which is relatively quiet compared to some of the more volatile noticeboards such as WP:AN or WP:ANI, out of respect. I can see how the "clean up" comment came off as snarky, it wasn't my intention and I apologize if any offense was taken. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 04:25, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Hi guys! Just as an update - I've gone through the work and I've given Cz17 an overview of the coursework. I'm glad to see that things are resolving on here - I know that communicating via written messages can be a little difficult, as we can't hear/see inflections or body language. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:31, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Grammar error on course pages

Hi! I'm one of the project's typo fixers. I've noticed that about 100 course pages have appeared on my latest work list because they contain the grammar error Leave suggestions on on the Talk page of the article, with an extra "on" (example). Apparently this is copied in from dashboard.wikiedu.org somehow. Does anyone know how to correct the master copy of this text? -- John of Reading (talk) 18:22, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Whoops. Thanks for reporting it. I just fixed it for future courses.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:39, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
github? I'd never have thought to look there. Thanks! -- John of Reading (talk) 18:41, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Concerns with students moving articles into mainspace

These articles have all been recently moved by students into mainspace with some glaring issues:

  • The effect of Brexit on climate policy (WP:NOTESSAY)
  • Data ethics (formatting makes it difficult to read/has since been updated)
  • Draft:People's Code (not exhaustive enough to be an article/has since been moved to draft)
  • Draft:Data Politics (not exhaustive enough to be an article/has since been moved to draft; includes line (Possible info to be contained in my article intro. Still very rough because I have not narrowed down what exactly I want/need to cover. To my peer reviewer: if you have any insight on other topics I should research for this article, feel free to suggest!))
  • Data Feminism (doesn't even seem to be a term that really exists; this is even mentioned in the page)

These seem to be coming from Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Carleton University/COMS4407 Critical Data Studies (Fall 2017), and there are many more elsewhere (I don't really have the time right now to go through all of them and discern what is viable). However, I am concerned with the apparent lack of oversight on these ill-advised page moves. Why are these not going through the WP:AFC process? Shalor (Wiki Ed), can you possibly expand on this? Nihlus 23:00, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Yuba College History 5b

I've recently seen a few users come into #wikipedia-en-help with the same problem. They're creating articles as their final assessment for a History 5B class at Yuba College, which requires that their articles be published to receive a grade. Obviously, the large backlog at AFC isn't helping with that, and a deadline of November 30th is causing the students to ask for faster reviews in IRC. With 26 students in the class, working in groups of 2 to 3, this problem will only magnify as time goes on. The two students I have interacted with on IRC are ‎L3nn1e (talk · contribs · count) and Pet Shopper (talk · contribs · count), both creating articles about slave traders. There's also a few other users in the edit history that are likely a part of the class. It's a bit late for training and proper course design at the moment, but if someone more involved in teaching with Wikipedia could try to contact the professor, I think it would help prevent the students from having negative interactions here and prevent future issues with the same class. --AntiCompositeNumber (Ring me) 03:35, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

@AntiCompositeNumber: Thanks for bringing it up here. Looks like there are two instances of that class at Yuba this semester, so we'll reach out to the instructors see if we can bring them on board. Since we're so close to the deadline, it's unlikely this will be able to help for this time around but we'll help them to avoid these issues in the future. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:51, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Raspberry Pi 3 Volumio

This draft was brought to my attention on IRC as a possible copyvio. I asked the author, Vladimirfedun about it, and he told me it was an assignment for a class. I asked him to ask his professor to reach out here, but is there anything else I should be doing? It's definitely over the WP:NOTAWEBHOST line, and if there's more coming I'd prefer to nip it in the bud. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:53, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

@Premeditated Chaos: I left the student another short message just asking for the instructor's name and the school. Hopefully we can either help or get them in touch with people who can help. Ping me if you find additional information about where the class is? --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:21, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
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