Wikipedia talk:School and university projects/Archive 4
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Creating accounts for students
Hello. Last year, I had my high school students working on a Wikipedia editing project for YA novels. I've added the project to the list of current projects (more official than I was last year), but I'm wondering if someone can help me navigate a problem I encountered last year: my school's IP address (206.211.69.253) is blocked, so students are not able to create their own accounts at school (and some do not have internet access/transportation to internet at home). Could I make accounts for my students? Or can my school's IP be unblocked for a certain period of time for account creation?
I asked this question after the fact last year, and here was the answer: "If you create an account, make a note on your userpage that your a teacher, then you can create accounts for your students as needed. If you have any other questions just let us know. Thanks for emailing unblock-en-l John"
Can someone help me make sure I have this privilege? Thanks! Roseclearfield (talk) 15:48, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- You're probably looking for Wikipedia:Account creator. Do you want to have this right? OhanaUnitedTalk page 22:18, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- I think that's what I was looking for. Request sent. Thank you! Roseclearfield (talk) 02:39, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
- This is all resolved. Thanks, everyone. Roseclearfield (talk) 15:47, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Vandalism as school assignment
Through wikisignpost's twitter feed, i read this blogpost:
my daughter (a sophomore in high school) was given an assignment to introduce errors into Wikipedia. Presumably, the intention was to demonstrate that entries could be 'unreliable'. Now, she chose a popular page, and had her changes corrected almost straightaway, to the extent that it was not possible to complete the assignment as given. In fact, she ended up being barred from editing pages as her behavior was seen as unacceptable.
Should we put up a note in the project page that such assignments are unwelcome?--Sodabottle (talk) 10:34, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- * Sigh * Yes, definitely! — SMUconlaw (talk) 16:34, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Wonderful. Will the same teachers assign "Go and steal something from a shop" as an educational exercise in legal systems? PamD (talk) 10:42, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- That is awful! May I add that I am going to be asking my 9th grade students to report vandalism to admins like vigilante policemen? Roseclearfield (talk) 18:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Can policemen even count as being vigilantes since they are government officials? I suppose if they're in a county that isn't under their jurisdiction. SilverserenC 20:14, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Please review seriousness v. proposed deletion as parody of new article Names of small numbers at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of small numbers
School and univeristy projects WikiProject members, this is being discussed at:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of small numbers http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Names_of_small_numbers#Names_of_small_numbers
Please also consider what additional sections from binary and other numbering systems and from educationally, historically, linguistically and epistemologically significant concepts and works, including fractions and parts of wholes other than simple number-base exponential systems, including terms from currencies, agriculture, art media, and pre-modern English language names of small portions should be made to this topic as a kept article, especially subtopics which may not be generally known by Wikipedian editors in other particular fields. Etymology for some SI and Metric terms is included in their respective articles to which this one is linked; please consider what portions and extents of etymological information from those sources and what other sources are appropriate to add to this article as well.
Thank you. Pandelver (talk) 04:13, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
Semarang State University "Papat Limpad" competition
Not quite sure this is the correct place (if not, sorry about that), but there appears to be a competition being organized by Semarang State University called "Papat Limpad" that is causing a slew of students to create accounts and pretty much the same user page with their photo. For example:
- JV021Efendi (talk · contribs)
- JV087Wapistic (talk · contribs)
- JV042Juwita (talk · contribs)
- JV010ASIH (talk · contribs)
Unfortunately, some of these students are creating their user page using Indonesian, so they end up with Pengguna:JV042Juwita, Panganggo:JV009Asep, Panganggo:JV015Chafid, etc. I and a few other admins have moved these misplaced articles into their proper user space. I tried to reach out to a few of them, but my message appears to have been ignored. The competition appears to be this. Would somebody be willing to do some further investigation and contact the event organizer about getting these students to create proper user pages and, more importantly, possibly coordinate something with this project? Thanks. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 05:44, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
- If they're supposed to be writing articles in the Javanese language, why are they creating accounts here? Nil Einne (talk) 07:20, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
- I have no idea. Perhaps poor instructions on the competition instructions? -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 12:40, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
You guys aware of this?
Check out User:Jfenleybsu for a school project. Not sure if somebody was aware of it, so just notifying you here. Yoenit (talk) 07:52, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Concerns about these projects
Is there a place in this article where one can discuss matters not flattering to university faculty projects? Heresy, I realize. My experience with the School and university projects, at least the ones in Wiki-chemistry and related areas from univerisity of Michigan, have revealed some weaknesses in this program. My main concern is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, first and foremost, Wikipedia does not exist as a "scratch-pad" for students, who are forced to write essays by faculty. One consequence of student work is that other editors are stuck with the janitorial work. Janitorial work = reformatting, redoing artwork, and often correcting technical mistakes in content, finding better references. A persistent and unsolved problem is that students lack perspective. Consequently, they tend to cite primary sources, which are often newsy and usually US-oriented. If more involved, faculty supervisors could insist on general sources and help the students pursue this policy (per WP:SECONDARY). But apparently, faculty rank quality of these articles based on the number of references, not the depth of the explanations. I understand the basic laudable drivers for School-and-university-projects: nurture new editors and create new content. The former is not happening at least in Chemistry project, and the articles that are created are often, as I said above, mediocre because of their narrowness. --Smokefoot (talk) 15:22, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
- I share your concerns, similar issues are arising in the Medical articles, some of the students do not have the depth of knowledge to edit an article. Who checks these contributions for accurate content and precise secondary referencing. In some cases the articles need to be completely revised by regular editors due to the lack of adequate tutorial supervision, and may be the tutors themselves are not adequately knowledgeable or qualified to even pass judgement in the first place. dolfrog (talk) 16:10, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
- Another negative by-product of this project is the creation orphan articles that are sitting side-by-side to existing articles. eg ocean acidification is the main wiki article whereas now also the orphan article Ocean acidification and rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere is created. I fully support the concept of writing articles for wikipedia, however, students and staff should be well aware that wikipedia is an interlinked encyclopedia and not a bundle of independent essays. Hans Erren (talk) 22:21, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
I very much agree with the above comments. I've worked on some embarrassing badly written, incorrect, and poorly cited articles that read as student productions. Worst is massive violation of copyright (See e.g. talk for Spontaneous recovery. The many instances of copyright violation here would be a huge task to remove in detail.) One way to make student contributions truly useful would be to emphasize in project guidelines that professors should make sure that students understand and follow guidelines, especially on copyright. Professors should carefully review the student paper before it goes into Wikipedia . Db4wp (talk) 18:29, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Great example courses to highlight
I'm working on an education portal on Outreach wiki to introduce instructors to the possibilities of Wikipedia assignments. One section is for examples of other courses that have used Wikipedia effectively. There are a number of recent courses supported by the ambassador program, but I'm looking for some great examples independent of the ambassador program as well. Any suggestions? I have Murder, Madness, and Mayhem already. If anyone has other favorite courses that went well, please do let me know.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:38, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Are there two nearly identical projects pages running simultaneously?
I recently added my school project "Pasadena City College, Shatford Library: LIB 104, Technical Services, Spring 2011" to "Wikipedia:School and university projects/TITLE" at http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects/TITLE . There is a nearly identical projects page with this title and URL: "Wikipedia:School and university projects" http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects . Is this duplication of project pages intentional or a mistake? LIB104 (talk) 09:04, 19 May 2011 (UTC)LIB104LIB104 (talk) 09:04, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
- It's a mistake resulting from editors not changing the default value of the form to add new projects. I've deleted it. Here's your contribution, so you can add it to the correct page. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 09:20, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
=== [[Pasadena City College]], Shatford Library: LIB 104, Technical Services, Spring 2011. === The purpose of this research and writing assignment will be for the class to collectively contribute to the improvement and expansion of the Wikipedia stub entitled: [[Library technical services]]. The class will be divided into five groups, with each group assigned two topics from this list: 1. Acquisitions 2. Authority Control 3. Bindery 4. Book Repair 5. Cataloging 6. Classification 7. Computer Systems 8. Interlibrary Loan 9. Processing 10. Serials & serial control This project is managed by [[User:LIB104]]
Environment-related school project?
Based on these comments by an article's author, and the very recent spat of urban/environment-related articles with similar problems (WP:NOTESSAY, WP:OR, and WP:SYNTH) - some of which we have identified in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Command and control regulation - I believe a school project is taking place where students have been directed to post their research essays on various urban/environmental topics. I tried to see if I could connect to the teacher through one of the students here, but I doubt that is going to work. Anyone here have any suggestions about how to deal with these? Myself and other new page patrollers have noticed a large number of them over the last few days... Additional information about the situation can be found at User talk:discospinster#Environment-related papers being posted to Wikipedia. Singularity42 (talk) 21:06, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
Possible proposal for possibly very broad based groups
OK, this is a bit complicated. First, I think it important to note that there is a very good encyclopedia of the Great Plains, which covers the plains in both the US and Canada. Having said that, there are not specific works dealing with many of the involved US states, although specific encyclopedias for British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan have been published with significant academic and popular acclaim. There is also a critically-acclaimed Encyclopedia of New York State, which received $650,000 in state funding in exchange for 1,056 copies of the book, one for each of the state's libraries.
I have been considering contacting the state librarians of the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana, and suggesting the possibility that, perhaps, the states might want to consider the possibility of maybe requesting their citizens to develop relevant encyclopedic content here for the purpose of having the articles serve as the basis for at least a state encyclopedia, with perhaps the possibility of state biographical encyclopedias, narrative history books, and maybe textbooks for state history for use in schools. Obviously, I think the encyclopedic works would be the first priority in terms of completion.
Specifically, the proposal might include having the state librarians create lists of articles they think such a work would need, maybe have the governor(s) make a statement supporting it and perhaps indicating when they would like to see the work completed (probably five to ten years, given the length such works seem to take in general) and actively requesting the input of the schools of the state and other interested individuals in developing relevant articles, probably emphasizing those listed by the state librarians. Then, at the end, the material could be edited down to a print version and published.
I think if successful, such an effort would probably encourage other states, cities, and areas as well. Unfortunately, I also think that, with probably at least 3,000 or so articles between the states, most of which are about topics most of the rest of us wouldn't know much about, finding existing editors who might be able to help might be particularly problematic. Anyway, I haven't made such proposals at all yet, and would welcome any input from others about whether they think it would be a good idea to make such proposals or not. Thanks for your attention. John Carter (talk) 18:50, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
Merger into Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Courses
I think that this page and Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Courses should be merged. It could be relatively simple. From this (SUP) page, we could keep the intro (which would be slightly rewritten), the guidelines, merge the past and present projects with those from the course page, keep see also and links. Contact person section would be obsolete, as the new real contact persons are the ambassadors. In the end, this page would be redirected to Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Courses. Thoughts? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:48, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
- I'm not following you. Doesn't this page list projects not associated with the ambassadors project or do I misunderstand the nature of this page? And doesn't the ambassadors page only list projects associated with that project? If so, it doesn't seem appropriate to merge these two pages as there should be a place to list, discuss, and help faculty who are assigning Wikipedia work without being affiliated with the ambassadors. ElKevbo (talk) 22:05, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
- Valid point. No, we don't want to eliminate SUP, just to integrate it more with the quite active WP:AMBASSADOR program. SUP can mostly remain as it is, geared towards people who don't need/want ambassadors, but it would have more links to various goodies provided by the ambassador program (primarily, in the form of Template:Wikipedia Ambassadors navbox and the related tab template (see talk of that template for details). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:40, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
Student user template?
I would find it helpful to know when I am responding to a student who is working on the project as part of their school program. If I know they have additional resources (at least an instructor) that most users don't have, I can refer them to those resources for help in addition to the normal help pages. Also, I would have more slack for someone who is repeatedly "vandalizing" a page or copying off the web, etc. if I knew they have been assigned an editing task but don't know how to do it. I think I am good about welcoming newcomers but I'd be extra helpful if I knew they were students on assignment. To that end I'd like to see students' talk pages deploy a template that explains their program and their role in it. Jojalozzo 05:04, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
- There is {{WAP student}} over at WP:AMBASSADOR. I also made {{WAP psych student}} for my classes. Might be a good model. --MTHarden (talk) 14:57, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
Help
Over a month ago I tried to add my course to the list of SUP projects and thought I had figured it out. However, when I now access the educational assignment template it takes me to this page where my course is not listed and now I can't figure out how to edit again so that it is in included. Can anyone help me figure out what might have happened?Tatompki (talk) 19:47, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Unlisted project and concerns
This course Wikipedia:Canada Education Program/Courses/Intellectual Property: Copyright, Trademark and Patent (Ariel Katz) is not listed and is causing some concerns... See Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion... Presumption of validity; utility in patent law in Canada... with students being put "between a rock (their assignment) and a hard place (Wikipedia policy and processes)". --Edcolins (talk) 20:14, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
Image needs to be replaced
Can you please add an image of an interactive board.--20thtryer (talk) 12:25, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
Ongoing school project on English villages?
There's evidently some university project going on where individual students are assigned articles on English villages to work on ([1], other articles concerned include: Stirchley, Shropshire, Clee St. Margaret, Waverton, Cumbria, Stanton upon Hine Heath, and many others). While the whole idea of it is certainly to be welcomed, many of the new editors in question have shown similar problems with some of their editing, especially image uploads, where a lot of them have been repeating the same errors.
Does anybody here happen to know something about the background, or a contact address or something? I've asked several of the students involved to get me in touch with their teacher so I can get some crucial advice across to the whole class in a more efficient way, but I haven't had any response from them so far. It's a bit frustrating because I keep having to delete their images for the same kinds of reasons again and again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:40, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Request for comment
Project members: I am working on a draft for an "English Wikipedia Board of Education". Your comments would be appreciated. The working draft is at User:Pine/drafts/ENWP Board of Education. Please comment on the talk page. Thank you! Pine(talk) 23:05, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
FYI . . . There appears to be a class project at Higher education in the United States in case others want to monitor it. 72Dino (talk) 01:17, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Wikimania Education Meet-Up
Are you going to Wikimania? I'd like to arrange an Education Meet-Up while we are all in D.C. this year. Anyone from any country in the world is welcome to join -- Ambassadors, professors, students, program organizers, people interested in starting a program in any country worldwide, etc. We'll even provide T-shirts and some food! Here's where we need some input: when would be a good time for the meet-up, and what kinds of activities would you like to do at the meet-up?
Please fill out this Google Form if you're interested in connecting with other volunteers interested in education around the world at Wikimania! Hope to see you there! -- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 21:57, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
School blocked for meatpuppetry
Just found a load of school accounts blocked for sock/meat puppetry. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/MadridjaimeME/Archive There doesn't seem to be anything for me to give them to explain why they've gone wrong. We need to explain that each student needs their own account, that the course/school cannot have a role account. What else? We don't have a decent guide for schools. In addition about 50% of the IP blocking appeals I get are from schools. It feels like many (most?) schools are blocked. Secretlondon (talk) 11:19, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
- I suggest posting this at Wikipedia:Education noticeboard where it is likely to get more attention. Pine✉ 22:36, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
- I know this thread is old, but I think it's worth mentioning that this is the problem with admins handing out long term blocks like candy. Yes, I can see blocking shared IPs for up to six months if there's a problem with a serial vandal (preferably after a real attempt to contact the institution has been made), but some of these blocks, in my opinion, are just out right ridiculous and blatant assumption of bad faith. I've seen IPs with only one (short) prior block get blocked for a year without even being warned properly. I've seen IPs get blocked for five and even ten years. And it's not just schools that have problems with long term blocking; I've seen public libraries, government agencies, and major corporations with thousands of users get long term blocked because a few people decided to do some one time vandalism and some admin treated it like the IP represented one person. It's particularly bad when public libraries get long term blocked because a lot of people with low incomes rely on the library as their sole source of internet access. But it seems schools see the worst of it because I think some people here have it in their mind that all contributions from schools are useless. Which is rather odd considering the number of registered contributors we have here that are students, some in college, some in high school, some even in middle or elementary school. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) 03:47, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
- Admins do not hand out blocks like candy; the simple solution is tell those that can't edit as an IP to get an account.
— Berean Hunter (talk) 12:56, 30 August 2012 (UTC)- Schools that edit through a single IP are a nightmare; in most cases the level of valid edits is vastly outweighed by the torrent of vandalism (and I speak as an educator whose college is currently blocked for 2 years, which I completely agree with). It's not "a" serial vandal in most cases, it's hundreds of children let loose to "research" their work through Wikipedia - if they then find out they can actually change it, what do you think is inevitably going to happen? It doesn't matter if it's a minority of students when there's 2000 in the school. Indeed, our school edits through a consortium that ropes in all the schools in three counties ... that's about 90,000 students through a single small IP range. No choice for these - they need to be blocked anon. The block message is clear about creating an account if you want to contribute positively. I mean, talk about bad faith... "I think some people here have it in their mind that all contributions from schools are useless." No - we don't think that, we're not stupid. We're just being pragmatic. It is unfair to leave volunteers to clean up piles of vandalism on the off chance there might be some constructive editing from that IP. Black Kite (talk) 15:10, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
- I agree with Black Kite. Public libraries should not be given long blocks except in serious cases, but schools and colleges are another matter. Once the pupils discover vandalism it becomes a game. Not infrequently it restarts immediately a block ends - they have evidently marked the end of the block on the calendar. Worst of all is tag-team vandalising from different IPs, which can't be cleaned up with rollback. I think the normal practice of schoolblocks escalating up to a year is about right; the {{schoolblock}} template explains how someone who wants to contribute constructively can get an account. JohnCD (talk) 16:26, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
- Schools that edit through a single IP are a nightmare; in most cases the level of valid edits is vastly outweighed by the torrent of vandalism (and I speak as an educator whose college is currently blocked for 2 years, which I completely agree with). It's not "a" serial vandal in most cases, it's hundreds of children let loose to "research" their work through Wikipedia - if they then find out they can actually change it, what do you think is inevitably going to happen? It doesn't matter if it's a minority of students when there's 2000 in the school. Indeed, our school edits through a consortium that ropes in all the schools in three counties ... that's about 90,000 students through a single small IP range. No choice for these - they need to be blocked anon. The block message is clear about creating an account if you want to contribute positively. I mean, talk about bad faith... "I think some people here have it in their mind that all contributions from schools are useless." No - we don't think that, we're not stupid. We're just being pragmatic. It is unfair to leave volunteers to clean up piles of vandalism on the off chance there might be some constructive editing from that IP. Black Kite (talk) 15:10, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
- Admins do not hand out blocks like candy; the simple solution is tell those that can't edit as an IP to get an account.
- I know this thread is old, but I think it's worth mentioning that this is the problem with admins handing out long term blocks like candy. Yes, I can see blocking shared IPs for up to six months if there's a problem with a serial vandal (preferably after a real attempt to contact the institution has been made), but some of these blocks, in my opinion, are just out right ridiculous and blatant assumption of bad faith. I've seen IPs with only one (short) prior block get blocked for a year without even being warned properly. I've seen IPs get blocked for five and even ten years. And it's not just schools that have problems with long term blocking; I've seen public libraries, government agencies, and major corporations with thousands of users get long term blocked because a few people decided to do some one time vandalism and some admin treated it like the IP represented one person. It's particularly bad when public libraries get long term blocked because a lot of people with low incomes rely on the library as their sole source of internet access. But it seems schools see the worst of it because I think some people here have it in their mind that all contributions from schools are useless. Which is rather odd considering the number of registered contributors we have here that are students, some in college, some in high school, some even in middle or elementary school. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) 03:47, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
Volunteers?
Polytechnic of Namibia in Windhoek is running their Information Competence classes again. This is one of the bigger projects with an estimated 900 students this year, joining any time from 3 September (next week). You can help us with this! --Pgallert (talk) 13:35, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
What's the relation between this and the Wikipedia Education Program?
I've been working with the Wikipedia education program for a while now, getting a course going for this fall (it's in its first week now). It's been helpful, but it's also been a lot of extra overhead work. Just today, she got a nice message on her talk page asking us to add links to our course pages on a few other pages here and also Wikiproject classroom coordination. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, by now, because the Wikipedia community is so vast. But, I was already feeling that the Education program pages were way too fragmented and disorganized. Why all this duplication of work? Are there efforts to coordinate your activities? I have to say, there actually is such a thing as too much helpful information -- it adds quite a barrier to entry, because newbies like us have to sort through everything to get a feel for what is going on. Klortho (talk) 02:26, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
- School and university projects predates the "Wikipedia Education Program" and is only with English Wikipedia. I put my first project here way back in 2007 but havent since since my projects encompass en.wiki, es.wiki and Commons. I agree with you that things are fragmented, but that's not just the Education program. I believe this is an evolving process trying to figure out what works with so many different initiatives from different sectors, which sometimes clash. This is one reason the site you mention here has been moved to [2] with the of Education Portal, as many now associate "Wikipedia Education Program" with initiatives out of the Foundation in San Francisco. It has a Projects tab, which may be more useful in the long run than this site.Thelmadatter (talk) 17:58, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
- I'm fine with either. The WMF, by concentrating their efforts in the USA and then in Pune, put themselves at something of a disadvantage. But all of us are behind their efforts just as much as we're behind this project's efforts. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:36, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
- To clarify a little bit... the Wikipedia Education Program includes several efforts that have direct Wikimedia Foundation involvement (including the US and Canada Education Programs, as well as a pilot project in Cairo) as well as any other chapter-run and independent volunteer education projects that find it useful to call themselves part of the "Wikipedia Education Program". In terms of direct efforts, WMF is trying to focus strategically on courses that have the most potential to improve Wikipedia. And more broadly, WMF wants to support volunteers with whatever education projects they're running to improve Wikipedia (and the sister projects)—primarily by building resources like those available at the Bookshelf that can be used in a wide variety of projects, as well as grant funding for other volunteer- and chapter-led education projects.
- Fighting fragmentation is a continual up-hill battle, since many different people are doing many different things at the intersection of Wikipedia and education. Wikimedia Foundation is developing one particular model for Wikipedia in the classroom—based around the Wikipedia Ambassador roles—but there are many other viable ways of doing things as well, so there's no need to force everyone to do things the same way if they've found something else that works for them. The purpose of this page isn't so much to coordinate, it's just a place to let others know about independent education projects.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 20:42, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
- I'm fine with either. The WMF, by concentrating their efforts in the USA and then in Pune, put themselves at something of a disadvantage. But all of us are behind their efforts just as much as we're behind this project's efforts. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:36, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Guideline: start in userspace
Can we add to the guidelines for school and university projects that students creating new articles should create and edit those articles in their userspace at first? The students should move their new articles into the mainspace only when they consider the articles decent enough to display to public scrutiny. (Yes, anyone can look at a draft in userspace, but it's unlikely to be put up for deletion soon after creation. By contrast, many student project articles in the mainspace have been sent to WP:AFD soon after their creation.) I've been a Wikipedia editor for seven years, an administrator for five years, and I still draft my articles in my userspace before moving them to the mainspace. New editors would be even better served by doing so. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:05, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
I just noticed this comment. I totally agree with starting in the userspace. But the experience of WP:CHEM is that they should put their semi-finished work in the main space early enough that they can learn how an article should look like, through interacting with other editors. Too often, complete articles are dumped on the main space near the end of the semester, and the former editors abandon their work. That leaves a lot of work for regular editors, which is frustrating. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 22:14, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Possible School Project
Could someone knowledgeable about these things please take a look at Interactive design. In the last day a hoard of SPAs have appeared to change a redirect into a large, but rough, article. If this is *not* a class project of some sort, then something very weird is going on. But my WP-senses are screaming class project on this one. :) Anyway, a WP:AN post about this has started to get some clean-up assistance going, but if someone from here is able to try to figure out if this is indeed a class project, and if so, who's in charge as a contact, then please do so. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:03, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Courses extension is up and running
The Education Program extension for structured course pages for classes is now live. (It's actually been deployed for a few weeks, but unrelated platform updates introduced a critical bug that it took us a little while to fix.) Per the RfC on using the extension, it's now available for use by US and Canada Education Program, as well as whatever other courses the community chooses to use it for. See Special:SpecialPages#Education for the various features and lists of courses.
Admins now have the ability to create (and delete) institutions and courses, and to assign the user rights for "course coordinators" (non-admins who will be able to create and remove courses, mark people as instructors or volunteers, and use the rest of the extension features), "online volunteers" or "campus volunteers" (people helping out with courses, such as Online and Campus Ambassadors), and "course instructors".
I'll be beta testing it with one of the current Education Program classes, Education Program:University of Guelph-Humber/Currents in Twentieth Century World History (2012 Q4), as well as building up the documentation for course pages. Now's also the time to figure out how we want to use this for independent classes; it should make it easier to keep tabs on classes and catch problems early, so trying it out by offering it to a few classes that we discover editing on their own might be a good first step.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:53, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Who are they?
Wikipedia:School and university projects/reactorgo/projects Who is this group and where are they? --Stone (talk) 22:07, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
- I'm guessing that they're with this course: University of Illinois Chemistry React UIUC (Fall 2012) The Interior (Talk) 22:23, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
- Same procedure than last year! They will dump their stuff and leave forever. Now we have to deal with that. Is there a chance to get to the supervisor of this bunch? .--Stone (talk) 22:43, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
If they don't move it to the mainspace, we will not need to deal with it. Maybe they can stay in the userspace forever. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 22:54, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
- This user: User:Reactuiuc created the list page you linked, probably a prof or TA. They didn't register with the education program, so there's no course page/ambassador. Try emailing that user if you want. The Interior (Talk) 22:59, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Newport Back Bay possible school project
There appears to be a possible school project at Newport Back Bay based on the number of recent edits by new editors on this generally quiet article (see revision history). How is this situation generally handled? Thanks, 72Dino (talk) 00:54, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
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