User:Pushblock/OLES2129

Before today

Before today's class you must have done the following;

1) Worked through Topic One and Topic Two on Canvas

2) Listened to the Online Lecture under Topic 3

Seminar 1

Hello everyone, welcome to the first seminar for OLES2129!

To begin, we'll spend some time going over some unit admin, plagiarism, copyright, and some general rules for working in the Wikipedia space. It's a bit different to working in an academic environment, and we'll all be figuring out this difference together so we can learn how to be productive Wikipedia writers and editors.

Afterwards we will spend some time working through the activities in Module 3 - you'll read through the basic policies and guidelines behind Wikipedia, and the core principals of the encyclopedia. Hopefully you have already created your Wiki ID. If not, you may not be able to create it at university as often our IP is blocked for creating too many accounts (Wikipedia sort of sees us all as one person). If you are blocked, you'll need to pause your work in class and finish the parts that require this ID off at home.

For the Discussion Board exercise, you need to look at the main Wikipedia page and go to each of the sections as directed on your instructions.Click on 'View History' on the top right hand corner and then click on 'Page statistics'. For 'Revision History Statistics', please write down how many edits were made in the last 30 and 365 days. For 'Number of Watchers' please copy the number given on the page. For 'Page View Statistics' please copy the number after Pageviews (60 days). Then post each of these on the Canvas discussion board for each of the topics directed in your instructions.

When you are prompted to link to our Wikipedia Education Dashboard, you will need to enter the password Beatrice.

Finally, we will get started on finding your major assessment topic! All of the unit's assessments relate to this topic, including your annotated bibliography (due Week 5).

Next week you must provide your seminar leader with your choice of topic.

Finding a topic 101

One of the most important things we will do this tutorial is begin the hunt for your major assessment topic. Choose this carefully, as you will be working on it throughout the semester, and potentially end up being the first editor of the topic's final Wikipedia page! This is a 'real life' assessment, in that you will choose a topic which does not currently have a Wikipedia page dedicated to it, and you will write that page. You do not have to publish the page at the conclusion of OLES2129, however it is highly recommended that you give it a shot. Some of you may encounter some picky editors along the way, but rest assured that I and the other tutors are experienced in dealing with this and are here to help. This page - Wikipedia:Your first article - will walk you through the necessary considerations.

The below tips will help you get started!

1. Poke through Wikipedia's 'requested pages' for ideas: Wikipedia:Requested articles. Not all of these will be suitable, though we hope that most will, as you may discover when completing your first assessment.
2. Consider alternate topics if nothing in the requested article pages catch your eye. This will be a fair bit more work - you're going to need to sell the topic to me in order to get a yes!
3. Find a comparable page to see what is required. If you are choosing an archaeological site, take a look at the article for Mycenae. If you are choosing a game, check out the article for Red Dead Redemption. If you choose a person, check out the article for Karl Marx. These are comprehensive and a lot 'bigger' than what you will put together by the end of this unit, but they will give you an idea of the standard. Look at how these pages are sectioned, how they use sources, what sources they use, and what information they provide.
4. Let me know what you've chosen - I'll be keeping track and keeping an eye on things just in case a topic you've chosen becomes more difficult than anticipated. Ideally this needs to be today, but if you need a bit more time you'll need to keep me updated via email. Topics need to be selected before next week's seminar.
5. Topics to absolutely avoid are biographies of living people, and in particular celebrity biographies. Working on a person who has passed away is definitely an option. Pages on brands are difficult to write without seeming like an advertisement.
6. Remember that you will need to produce the equivalent of 2000 words of writing on this topic, so make sure you choose a topic with a significant enough amount of resource material (at least five sources, as you will need to submit these for your annotated bibliography).

Beginning your draft

Note that we're not going to get started building anything today, but if you get the urge, please make sure you create a private draft page under your username (User:yourusername/draft) rather than drafting directly into the topic's page. Drafting directly into the topic page means you are at the mercy of the Wikipedia bots, and your page runs the risk of deletion. As draft pages are also potentially open to being moderated out of existence by bots, always keep a second copy of your work in a word doc. You'll be submitting your assessments in word documents, so this is good practice in any case.

Proposal Assessment

Your first written assessment (i.e. non-quiz) is due in Week 5. As this assessment is based around selecting and justifying your chosen topic for the semester it's important that we try and lock these topics down today. You will be required to outline your topic, present a preliminary plan, and present five annotated articles or pieces of writing that can be used as sources in preparing your eventual article. A full description will soon be posted on our Canvas site, but for now, get started on locking down that topic!