Education/Countries/Bulgaria/Expertise
Preparation for the course
[edit]- Does the course take into account the different specifics of the university/topic/discipline:
- Full-time/distant learning?
- Compulsory/free course?
- B.Sc. or M.Sc.? In which year are the students (1, 2, 3, 4, mixed)
- The students' profile - humanitarian, natural sciences, ...
- ...
- The lector's motivation?
- The lector is a Wikipedian
- ...
- The lector is not a Wikipedian, but
- wants to vary his/her teaching by using new practices
- searches for outside help for teaching/grading
- ...
- The lector is a Wikipedian
- The students' motivation?
- Is the fulfillment of the task compulsory or not?
- Does the fulfillment of the task lead to a grade?
- the task on Wikipedia makes the whole grade
- the task on Wikipedia is a part of the grade (bonus)
- the task on Wikipedia is not a part of the grade
- Other kinds of motivation:
- certificate,
- the lector will recommend the student, e.g.:
- for a job or a trainee application
- for a grant or a prize application
- for a study abroad, ...
- possibility of putting the information in a CV, online identity
- ...
- What will the task be?
- Writing new articles
- Editing existing articles
- Adding audio/video content
- Creation of templates, programming of scripts
- Writing an essay, a report, an interview ..., connected to Wikipedia
- Analysis of a topic, connected to Wikipedia, e.g.:
- analysis of a law case,
- creation of a communication strategy,
- analysis of the usage possibilities of Mediawiki in some respect,
- analysis of social attitude towards Wikipedia,
- risk analysis on a question, connected with wiki/Wikipedia
- ...
- Aims:
- What is the aim of the project?
- Are there concrete measurable aims:
- number of new articles,
- number of better made articles,
- number of images, etc.?
- Is the use defined?
- Use for the students?
- Use for the lector?
- Use for Wikipedia?
- Use for the topic of the problem?
- Are the knowledge and abilities which the students will gain as a result of the course defined?
- Are there such knowledge and abilities which the students would gain or develop because of the tasks solved on Wikipedia?
- Are there concrete measurable aims:
- What is the aim of the project?
- Topics of the tasks
- Only from the field of the taught discipline
- Part of the task is from the field of the discipline, another is free to choose
- Topics are completely free to choose
- Does the course take into account the current state of the Wikipedia content in the language to be written in:
- Are there articles from the field of the discipline?
- In the language to be written in
- In other languages
- Are there well written articles from the field of the discipline, which can be taken as an example/pattern?
- In the language to be written in
- In other languages
- Is there a potential for generating authors' illustrating materials?
- ...
- Are there articles from the field of the discipline?
- Has the lector created a list of topics from the taught discipline?
- Do students have the right to expand the list with topics, which they have chosen?
- Are the topics assigned to individual students or do the students have the right to choose?
- Do articles count as bonuses?
- Individual or group work?
- The work on the task on Wikipedia is individual
- The work on the task on Wikipedia is done in a group
- Students can choose
- Preparation of the Wikipedia environment:
- Is a coordinating article for the university Wikiproject prepared?
- Do Wikipedian mentors take part in the project?
- Is there information on Village pump that such a course will take place?
- List of criteria based on which articles created during the course will be graded
- Has the meaning and importance of each criterion been explained?
- Is there a requirement about the length or completeness of the articles? How is this requirement motivated?
- Timeline:
- How much time is provided for the completion of the tasks?
- Does it take into account the students' knowledge?
- Does it take into account their other tasks in the same discipline?
- Does it take into account the time they have to spend learning other disciplines in the same time frame?
- It is not necessary that too much time is given?
- Are foreign influences which can hinder the timeline taken into consideration?
- Bank holidays, weekends
- University events
- Other obligations of the lector
- Other obligations of the students
- Are the lector and the wikimentors given enough time?
- To check and critically grade the results of the work,
- To give feedback to the students,
- To wait for the students' feedback and
- Grade their performance again.
- How much time is provided for the completion of the tasks?
- Has an introductory lecture been given to the students?
- Do they show interest, do they answer questions, the they ask questions?
- Have notability criteria been explained?
- Have the rules about content and sources been explained: Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources, Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Notability
- Have the requirements concerning the structure of articles been explained?
- Have the requirements concerning encyclopedic writing style been explained?
- Have the terms of usage of Wikipedia been explained, as well as the license under which the students contribute to Wikipedia?
- If students make a choice not to donate their work under free license, they cannot be pushed to do it. They have to have the option to finish their course outside of Wikipedia
- Survey at the beginning of the course?
Carrying out the course
[edit]- Students sign up and enrol the course via the course coordination wiki page
- Has been there an explanation why and how to open wiki account?
- That one account shall be used by one student only?
- That contributions under IP will not to be taken into consideration?
- Have they enter in the coordination page their signature and assigned/chosen topic of writing?
- Are the students aware of their user talk page and their watchlist?
- Communicating with students
- Where does the communication take place?
- On Wikipedia discussion pages
- Mailing list
- Group in a social network
- University's e-learning platform (Moodle, …)
- Face to face
- Have all students been welcomed on their user talk pages?
- Are the students' contributions subject of specific critical commentary? Are they directed to help pages, where they can read more about any problem they may face during the wiki course?
- Is there any reply from the students?
- Is there any respective reaction, i.e. revising the articles according to the mentors' and teacher's comments?
- Do the students get encouragement?
- Commentary when they performed well?
- Are they given "thank"-s?
- Barnstar, cupcake on the user/talk page or any other form of visual communication?
- Where does the communication take place?
- Is there an interim progress report being maintained?
- Is it reported somewhere? Publicly or individually for each student?
- What are the selected criteria for evaluation of the students' contributions?
- Are there specific criteria, relevant to the studied subject? Examples:
- Audiovisual content that can be created under free license?,
- Templates that must be obligatory used?,
- Interwiki links, ...
- Are there specific criteria, relevant to the studied subject? Examples:
- How has the evaluation workload been distributed among the teacher and the involved wiki mentors?
- Example:
| Commitment | Teacher | Wikimentor(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Assessment of the reliability of the used sources | Х | |
| Assessment of the factual precision of the article w.r.t. the cited sources | X | |
| Assessment of the exhaustiveness / article volume, w.r.t. the topic scope | X | |
| Check for copyright violations | X | X |
| Assessment of the neutral {unbiased} presentation of the content | X | X |
| Assessment of the encyclopaedic style of writing | Х | Х |
| Assessment of the layout, categories, links, interwiki links, illustrations | Х | |
| Assessment of other student's edits (in talk pages, related pages, Wikimedia Commons, etc.) | X |
-
- When and how do the teacher and the mentors communicate with each other?
- What problems do students face during the execution of the assignment?
- Technical difficulties
- Difficulties, related to access to sources
- Difficulties, related to communicating content from the sources
- Inability to formulate a definition
- Access to illustrative content
- What sorts of problems do students generate?
- Copyright violations
- Machine translations
- Rude attitude and strong language to other editors
- ...
- What sanctions are provided for students who violate the course rules?
- Has the scheduled time frame been enough for accomplishment of all the assignments?
Course completion
[edit]- What are the results from the wiki course? Do they correspond to the preliminary expectations and goals?
- Are the evaluations of the students' acquired knowledge and skills adequate?
- If the students had not worked on assignments in Wikipedia, and had been examined in another way, would they obtain the same marks?
- Has the students' feedback about their impressions from Wikipedia and the course been requested / obtained?
- What ideas for improvements of the processes of preparing and carrying out the course have occurred as a result if the course?
- Proposed by students
- Proposed by the teacher
- Proposed by the wiki mentor(s)
- Would the students remain as long-term Wikimedia contributors? If yes, why so? If not, why not?
- What ideas for improvements of the processes of preparing and carrying out the course have occurred as a result if the course?
- Has there been a case when the lecturer was asked to give a recommendation letter that includes a review of the student's contribution to Wikipedia?