User talk:Vanished user adhmfdfmykrdyr/Wikipedia:Requests for comment/United States Education Program

"Non-voluntary"[edit]

Just a quick q, what's up with the use of this term in regards to the students? The Interior (Talk) 21:15, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think it means if they're required to do DYK/GA/whatever as part of their coursework. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:29, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That maybe should be clarified, because right now it reads like they're enrolled at Gulag University, or Pol Pot College. The Interior (Talk) 21:47, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Non-voluntary is supposed to mean in this case: "required as part of their coursework to participate in Wikipedia." (Which itself is problematic, because there is no verification process that these student accounts are not sock accounts or that students have not been previously blocked.) Students who chose not to participate will potentially face lower grades. Some people I have chatted with on IRC who do AfC say this is a problem as students come in at the last minute to write an article two hours before the article is "due" and then want an immediate review to get the article to the main space... when there is a backlog of 300 to 800 articles... *babbling* But yes, non-voluntary is "compulsary class participation on Wikipedia". If you can figure out a better way to write it, please do. :) It isn't quite ready for main space and yeah. Should be fixed. --LauraHale (talk) 22:01, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Another proposal[edit]

All institutions now have ethics review boards that a proposal must pass before beginning. I agree that all class proposals should have to be reviewed by the WM in some form before being started. This could either be done by a 1)RfC or 2)a panel of long stating Wikipedians reviewing and providing feedback on the proposal in question.

Both these processes should take less than 30 days for their initiation feedback. The benefit of the second is that it would allow a more open discussion between the prof in question and the committee where the prof could improve things based on feedback. If the committee accepts it the prof could than be given the go ahead. Or it could than at that point be submitted to an RfC but it might be nice to stream line things a bit.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:35, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But Doc, the problem is they're doing whatever they want now, ignoring processes put in place. Many courses don't have ambassadors. Since we're doing the professors' work for them, they don't have any incentive to pay attention to top-down bureaucracy. If we add more bureaucracy, they'll just continue to ignore it. We need a more aggressive way to shut down the really bad editing (unfortunately, that's most of them in my experience) than adding more steps to the process. Better would be to deny them access to processes, like content review processes. The students don't want to be here-- it is "non-voluntary", and they're making things miserable on the rest of us, while adding little of value. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:39, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If the class does not get approval by a committee of active long term Wikipedians who edit content the class will loss their editing privileges. While we have had some difficult issues we still need a process for those who are serious like Jbmurray.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:43, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If the class does not get approval by a committee of active long term Wikipedians who edit content the class will loss their editing privileges. What you're saying has no equivalent in current Wiki processes or policies. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit-- a class can't "lose its privileges" because they decide to ignore our bureaucracy (which they are doing now anyway). They are editing now in droves, without online ambassadors. Unless we adopt the proposal that classes are treated as one meatpuppet, we have no means of removing their right to edit if they ignore how miserable they're making us. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:00, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes one big "meatpuppet" and this meetpuppet needs pre approval. If they do not get such approval they get banned. We have a committee that deals with research proposals using Wikipedia. The psychology class was a research project from the profs and TAs point of view (I do not think they got research approval through our committee, they might have from their university I do not know). Thus their is a president for people undertaking experiments with Wikipedia to require committee approval. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:25, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This committee than put together minimum requirements for a courses depending on what sort of project they are planning on carrying out. For those who wish to edit content directly some I would envision would be:

Prof puts aside X number of hours of Wikipedia instruction
Class has in place a mechanism to review and correct all students edits
Prof has made X number of edits / brought X articles to GA/FA him or herself within their subject area
Class has a specific ratio of ambassadors/TAs to students and these ambassadors/TAs have made X number of edits

--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:42, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All of that is good, but nothing requires any course or prof to pay attention to any of it. We've set up a situation where profs realize they can get free teacher's assistants to do their grading (eg, SandyGeorgia correcting dozens of student articles a week, prof doesn't have to do it), so why should they even care if they enroll in our silly bureaucracy? This horse is out of the barn, WMF gets what it wants (quantity over quality), lazy profs get their work done for them, Wikipedia editors get more work. What motivation does a prof have to follow your plan, when s/he can just go on and have students edit anyway? They aren't paying attention to our requirments now; why will adding more bureacracy make them pay attention? This terms, I've contacted five or six profs about problems with their classes, who don't even log on and most of them don't have ambassadors at all, or have ambassadors who are inexperienced to incompetent editors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:02, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The WMF is giving up the "Global Education Project" per rumors. We step up and take it on in collaboration with a few other groups. We get some teeth in the enforcement arm of this committee. Some powers would include reverting every change and stopping the project. A right to review the marking scheme being proposed and reject ones that do not make sense or have failed in the past. We require that profs who begin a project sign an agreement of understanding.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:21, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Requiring lesson plans (which is not the norm on the university level) and requiring community review before they can be implemented would address some these problems because it can be killed there too. Requiring professors to articulate instructional objectives related to Wikipedia would also help. I really want some best practices in education involved with this. There isn't any and I personally believe that this is causing some of the major problems we are seeing here. --LauraHale (talk) 05:13, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This project may also be able to offer some Wikipedia experts to come lecture the class on editing Wikipedia.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:19, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I still think on some level these courses, if forced to write out instructional objectives and lesson plans for all student engagement on Wikipedia would not actually find they match them. "Students will demonstrate content specific knowledge by editing an approved article related to the topic on Wikipedia" doesn't actually help Wikipedia. If academics were following a lesson plan or being forced to write one for community approval, this might become more obvious... and more of the blame could be put on student editors. Though er. Something. Something. I don't think just having people coming into the classroom teaching students to edit works unless backed by good educational practices.--LauraHale (talk) 05:37, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Expand[edit]

Not only US Education Project-- it's Canada, too. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:30, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal 2[edit]

Parts of the WP:WIKICUP requires the use of disclaimers stating the work they submit through the process is for the Wikicup.

Not really. The requirement to disclose at WP:FAC pre-dates WIKICUP, but when they didn't comply, FAC added checks, which later became bot checks, and the CUP dropped the disclaimer. This would be more correctly phrased with something like ... some content review processes, like WP:FAC, require disclosures of participation in ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:34, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Erk. The idea would be to have some way to require that. Not one of those psychology noms had a notice that it was involved with coursework. (And almost ZERO of them had students respond back.) Not sure how to fix it. Related option: Tag articles on the main page as WP:COI. (Which fun, prevents DYK and GA noms.) --LauraHale (talk) 05:15, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The difference between FAC and DYK is that someone is in charge at FAC, and if they don't disclose, the delegate can take whatever action is appropriate. That won't work at DYK, because in spite of years of my pleading, they won't put a panel in charge of what goes on the mainpage, so there's no place for the buck to stop. In that sense, I don't feel sorry that they were overwhelmed, since they are so resistant to change, and they could take measures to stop the abuse of DYK for rewards. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:16, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

RFC draft discussion[edit]

Discussion of this draft is going on at:

--LauraHale (talk) 03:48, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Providing feedback[edit]

We need a mechanism to provide feedback to profs and this feedback needs to come with some authority. Last time I attempted to provide feedback it did not go over to well as the prof felt that since he had gotten the go ahead from the WMF he had all the approval he needed and who the hell was I.

We the community of content editors need to take over the role of directing certain aspect of this program. Per some emails it looks like the WMF is giving the management of the Global Education program to others which are not yet determined. We need to be making the call on what sort of projects are acceptable and which are not. We need to have guidelines in place in place for what is suitable so profs know how to write up the application.

We finally need to have some resources to enforce process if it is continually ignored. I remain supportive of the idea of students editing in general. It just needs to be gone about in the right way, with the proper oversight, and the needed resources.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:17, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Last time I attempted to provide feedback it did not go over to well as the prof felt that since he had gotten the go ahead from the WMF he had all the approval he needed and who the hell was I. And now that has extended even to the students. On one merger proposal, the response I got was "we have course authorization"-- that now trumps Wikipedia policy and guideline, simply because there aren't enough of us to do anything about it. This horse is out of the barn-- there are more of us than them. The profs do not have to listen to us: anyone can edit Wikipedia. And I'm already getting lots of indications in articles that student editing is now happening outside of our bureaucracy, which is simply being ignored; we do have effectively meatpuppetry happening and coordinated editng. Draconian changes will be needed to accomplish what you mention above. I think I'm talking myself into supporting the proposal that, for some purposes, we should consider all students of any course as meatpuppets. That's the only community policy that may allow us to put an end to the poor content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:25, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So the question is how do give this committee teeth? If the meatpuppet policy does it than yes we should us it. We have Arbcom to which we have given the ability to ban users for better or worse. Giving a committee authority over classes I do not think is out of the question. Either way I think we all agree that we can not continue treating classes of students as normal editors.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:36, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But the profs can just circumvent us, as is now happening. New idea: many of the problems I've seen this term (and last) come from poor choices of articles to work on. How about if we ask professors to run proposed topics by relevant WikiProjects? If the lists of articles I've seen had been proposed at WT:MED, half of them would have been nixed, and we would have informed the prof that the content better belonged elsewhere. But I think they're coming up with new and whacky articles so they can be their "own", and so they can meet DYK expansion criteria on a new topic. Get topic approval from WikiProjects, and get the psych projects to run their whaky lists by WT:MED? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:46, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Sandy, you know that genetics course that you were having trouble with? I reviewed their original proposals - they were planning on editing, among other topics, Race and intelligence and AIDS. I didn't check revised proposals (prof did on his own), but I'm pretty damn sure the originals would have been much worse than what they actually did. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:55, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can't actually remember which course that was ... there are too many of them that are causing issues :) But, yea, ideally we'd steer them away from difficult topics, no? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:13, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We primarily want to create a process that provides guidance. But one that is not optional thus we need some authority from the community. If the profs do not have to follow the above process either it will achieve nothing.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:03, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I feel that we have a feedback mechanism in WP:MEAT. These accounts are SPAs indulging in off wiki coordination: 100% a meatpuppet. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:54, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Number of proposals[edit]

We should probably have 4 or so: 1)Limit access to assessment processes by either tagging classes or banning them from taking part

Does not really address many of the issues (we had a class that just asked each student to make one edit)

2)Courses requires community consensus based on submission of proposal by prof ( a merge of 4 and 5)

The community consensus process might get overwhelmed with too many proposals. Images bunches of 100 of these twice a year. If no feedback is provided on what is expected as a minimum this may be chaotic.

3)A committee of Wikipedians to help guide a required process and provide feedback with authority to take action which can be in addition to two, committee would determine number of ambassadors needed and if not sufficient class would need to hire people to fulfill this role

Would draft a minimum set of requirements based on community consensus and previous experience which would be distributed to potential classes. If the proposal does not meet this requirements it would not be approved until changes are made. Guidelines would be drafted by community consensus but consensus would not be needed for each proposal. Community of course would be able to change requirements based on past experience.

4) Do nothing

We simply do need to get involved at the front end of things.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:41, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Requirements[edit]

With respect to paying ambassadors I do not think this should be the role of the WMF but should be something that the class picks up. And it could be either as TAs or local Wikipedians. The main thing is that students need to have their edits reviewed by someone other than the Wikipedia community of volunteers.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:46, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

At this point, the purpose of this draft is not necessarily to discuss the various merits of the proposals (even though we're doing that anyway) but to come up with solutions to present to the wider community where we can reach a consensus regarding. On a personal note and responding to that, I don't care who pays but there needs to be a "buck stops here" person for student supervision. I personally think it should be qualified (re: have Wikipedia experience in the areas they are supervising community wise, such as DYK reviewing, GA reviewing, article assessment, article editing AND subject area expertise) people paid for by the university ideally OR WMF if this is truly something they want. Asking unpaid volunteers who are not beholden to anyone and cannot be held accountable... yeah. That has got to stop. Doing it right is almost full time work during a semester. --LauraHale (talk) 10:56, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The big thing is we need to craft proposals that will be acceptable by the majority of the community. As this is only an issue faced by use who edit academic content my feeling is that we are going to have difficulty gaining sufficient support.

Now if the rumor is true that the WMF is handing this project off to others we may be able to gain a foothold through our chapter. BTW are you part of a chapter at this point?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:12, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is a big possibility of getting support from reviewers involved with WP:Articles for Creation because of the major head aches created by students going through their system. I know a few who have begun passing off people to Wikipedia:Teahouse purely because of the headaches Wikipedia:Teahouse is causing for some people in WP:Articles for Creation. There are is annoyance at WP:DYK because of the backlog, and some resentment about people who nominate others work but don't have to review which makes QPQ a pain in the ass. (Toss in what seems like a system continually under assault by various interests.) I don't think it will get much attention but if we can get 50 voters, I think it would be really good. Then some of the most egregious problems could be stopped even WMF continues on making them.

And yes, aligned with a chapter as I'm the VP of Wikimedia Australia. I've done some educational stuff with the University of Canberra but not on the formal level. I've talked to a few Australian academics about WMF projects. --LauraHale (talk) 11:24, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Great I will bring Wikimedia Canada to the table. I just received an email from someone from Germany. Are you going to be at Wikimania this year? If so may be we could discuss it in person than.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:52, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea what they are doing with education because this is not a conversation, as far as I am aware, WMF is having with Wikimedia Australia. I've proposed educational outreach in my region as an individual but the foundation turned down funding for a trial programme. When I've had conversations with WMF, they have indicated they will NOT be supporting our region. Instead, they will continue to do work only really in the USA and Canada. (India and Brazil too.) I haven't seen any indication of reform on the system. If there is something going on, I'm honestly in the dark about it. (Which is FUN because I've got the contacts with two Australian universities who have implemented university projects on WMF projects.) --LauraHale (talk) 12:10, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, not going to Wikimania. Going to meta:WikiWomenCamp and meta:Wikigénero in May. Will be discussing educational outreach that India has done successfully. There will be a Ford Foundation grant person there. --LauraHale (talk) 12:12, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Professor assigns specific articles for the students - all articles hit dyk queue this week[edit]

Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Personality (William Fleeson)/Articles This table will list each article that a student is working on, and which other students will be peer reviewers for the article.

User	Article	1st reviewer	2nd reviewer
User:carps11	Big Five personality traits and culture	User:majobc11	User:allexe11
User:Moonpe11	Personality and life outcomes	User:Linp11	User:Plroseman
User:Linp11	Person-Situation Debate	User:moonpe11	User:Whitmb11
User:Allexe11	Dimensional approach to personality disorders	User:Linp11	User:Desasu11
User:majobc11	Humor styles	user:Carps11	user:allexe11
User:croweml11	Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory	User:velvsop	User:msbeaulieu
User:abj89	Honesty-humility factor of the HEXACO model of personality	User:Whitmb11	User:Armsbf11
User:Plroseman	Reinforcement sensitivity theory	User:velvsop	User:Armsbf11
User:Whitmb11	Personality judgment	User:moonpe11	User:croweml11
User:Armsbf11	Hierarchical Structure of the Big Five	User:croweml11	User:abj89
User:msbeaulieu	Personality changes	User:Desasu11	User:abj89
User:velvsop	Relationship Contingent Self-Esteem	User:Plroseman	User:msbeaulieu
User:Desasu11	Change in personality over a lifetime	User:Majobc11	User:Carps11

All 13 of these articles were nominated for dyk very recently, many primarily on the "Big Five personality traits".

One was subsequently nominated for deletion as a result:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dimensional approach to personality disorders

Obviously getting a dyk was required for the course by the professor. MathewTownsend 19:55, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed page reorganization[edit]

I suggest the page be completely reformatted and reorganized, to focus on each of the problems and issues, rather than the content areas as it does now. Folks coming to this issue for the first time simply won't read all of those links, and won't know how broad, pervasive, time-consuming, and trouble the problems are. Right now, this section is gynormous, and organized by content review area rather than by issue or problem, and nowhere on the page will editors new to the issue get an overview of the number and extent and type of problems occurring unless they click on every link (which they're unlikely to do). Think like an arbcase, where the arbs ask that representative diffs be given, and evidence be kept brief-- if evidence is too long, you'll use the audience. So, I suggest reorganizing that section as follows, presenting the most egregious diffs or discussions for each as examples, and summarizing the rest of the links somewhere in a table. Get the reader's attention. And Colin's analysis needs to be somewhere prominent, since that hasn't improved. I propose you focus on the problems, not the content areas, doing something like this:

Because course credit is given for GANs or DYKS,
- Content review processes are overwhelmed
  Show DYK, GAN, AFC, AFD, etc
  
  For each section, include the two or three worst examples, briefly summarized, and then include the gazillion other diffs in a show/hide collapse format
- Articles on obscure or non-notable topics are created, when text more correctly belongs elsewhere, possibly so the DYK expansion criteria can be met
- Examples of problems with merge discussions
- As the term deadlines approach, and students seek credit, problems with copyio and edit warring escalate
Ongoing copyvio issues unresolved since India program
Ambassador program, many courses have none, some are ineffective
Because classes engage in coordinated editing (class members, ambassadors, professor effectively become meatpuppets), consensus is affected:
- DYK
- AFD
- Merge proposals, other examples of stacked voting affecting consensus
Professors fail to engage the Project and aren't knowledgeable on Wikipedia policies
WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS not followed, and a general lack of understanding of the appropriate use of primary vs. secondary sources
Poor topic selection (klazomania, for gosh sakes-- there's nothing written on it)
Text added to wrong articles (look at what I'm going through now with echopraxia where a student is writing about schizophrenia in that article
General failure to understand encyclopedic tone and content, relative to SYN, OR, and student essays
Compulsary editing, few are retained, they don't want to be here, contributions are not high quality ... many can't write, or shouldn't be trying to write an encyclopedia, but because they're forced to be here, we deal with student essays, copyvio, etc ... go in to each problem ...

... and so on. This isn't exact, just pounded it out off the top of my head, but get the focus on the issues, not the discussions and content review areas, and provide the most egregious examples, so folks coming to this for the first time will see the extent of the problem. There's too much data here, folks won't read it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:29, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Running of the program[edit]

Per the WMF

We'd like to see another organization take on the day-to-day runnings of the U.S. and Canada programs. We're convening a Working Group to figure out the details of that, and asking people to submit a proposal for what the new structure could look like. I'd encourage you to submit a proposal if you're interested. More information is available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group

Thus we have an opportunity to be involved with defining a direction forwards. This might be more effective than a RfC. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:41, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Based on this <sarcasm> NPOV </sarcasm> introduction, I'm not optimistic that their goals have come in to line with those of the community of editors in the trenches:

The United States and Canada branches of the Wikipedia Education Program have matured over the past two years. Our exceptional Wikipedia Ambassadors have supported thousands of students' first edits, under the direction of innovative professors. More and more academics are interested in coming on board in future terms. The success of the programs is incredibly exciting, both for academics who see the value of using Wikipedia in the higher education classroom and for Wikipedia, whose articles improve from student contributions.

I think the RFC has to focus even better on the disconnect between WMF and what is really going on out there, and now their willingness to bring in parties likely to be even more disconnected from Wikipedia policies than they are (if that's possible). I also wonder if their "application process" is going to welcome critics and editors in the trenches who have had to deal with the fallout: this is daily becoming less and less a free and open encyclopedia created by volunteers, and more and more the pet project of those who get paid to grow lousy content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:00, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)

The problem for me is that I'm not interested in being part of the Educational Programs. I'm being forced to participate because I see damage done to encyclopedia articles and feel like I should fix them. I'm not interested in taking the time to submit more proposals or structures to the Working Group or help the WMF foist more work on me. I just want to work on the encyclopedia, which unfortunately is being significantly negatively impacted. These educational programs may well sink it. MathewTownsend (talk) 21:04, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I may well step up. Hopefully it will not be to time consuming. There is potential here is done properly / slowly / carefully. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:06, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We need someone in there who will address the problems, but I'm not sure it much matters. Over and over and over, the WMF lets us know just what they think of their committed "volunteers", and that they are willing to sacrifice quality for quantity. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:27, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have applied. I do believe that we can have an effect. I have had many interaction with the WMF during the setting up and running of WMCA. I consider them to be a good group of people. They just may need to spend a little more time editing themselves :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:44, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Education Working Group[edit]

Wikipedia:Education Working Group looks like it being created under the premise of circumventing community processes. :( If this is what WMF is talking about, they have not advertised it repeatedly in areas where assessment is ongoing and where volunteers on the ground have to interact with students. The language also appears to have a lot of puffery regarding historical programme outcomes. --LauraHale (talk) 21:02, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that was what I said above :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:25, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have added the "Wikimedia Community" to the page in question and hope you will support my application :-) I am still promoting student involvement as I have done here [1] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:44, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How do we "support your application"? I don't think anyone over at WMF cares who SandyGeorgia supports :) :0 SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:10, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Slow. And I submit my dissertation in a few days. At the same time, I am feeling frustrated by IRC accusations from Gobonobo that I am biting newbies. I suspect were these editors NOT involved with classes, the pushback would be worse for them. Wikipedia:Education Working Group/About the Working Group is an eDUCATION programme, but they do not appear to be soliciting anyone with EDUCATION experience to help run it. This is not a programme being designed by educators who are thinking about best practices to maximise student learning. It also does not appear to be looking for EXPERIENCED with Wikipedians with familiarity with various processes. --LauraHale (talk) 21:45, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are a number of profs involved. Thus there are some people with an educational background.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:51, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Do you happen to know what the educational background is? What degrees in education they have? What educational research they have conducted? What education related journals they have been involved with? What sort of training they have had in curriculum design, instructional technology, in writing instructional objectives? I admit to a certain degree I haven't been reading as many of the pages in depth as I could, but I'm under the impression there has been almost zero educational theory and best practices applied to any of this. There aren't clearly defined course objectives. If a student is supposed to nominate an article for DYK or Good Article but the article is clearly not there and I help fix reviewer concerns, does the student get academic credit for my work? Often, this is impossible to tell from the course. The psychology class, I cannot tell how students will be assessed on the peer review and fixes they will be expected to make to the articles they are working on. This is an instructional design problem and since these problems are being put into community space, NOT PRIVATE SPACE, these instructional objectives impact on us. So yes, clearly in my opinion, there is a need to have people with educational training and experience involved: I would like to see their credentials. (Given most universities provide no training on how to teach, being a university professor and teaching a course is not enough to have an educational background.) --LauraHale (talk) 22:58, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes we are just expected to learn by doing. Profs do get faculty development courses. But teaching with Wikipedia while improving Wikipedia is an all new activity. It will require some thinking outside the box and most importantly some experience with Wikipedia. I think the most important this before profs should be allowed to bring their students is that they must make a significant effort here themselves first. One can only learn Wikipedia by doing, not be studying.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:57, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Another issue; meatpuppetry, thousands of them, but if we do anything but treat them with kid gloves, we're "biting the newbies". Don't sweat the little stuff, Laura; I just hope they're sweet ones. The saddest thing is that they are not learning how to edit Wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:10, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I don't get impression they are learning. A discussion I had on IRC has led me to conclude these editors should NOT be treated as new editors. A class full of students should be treated as experienced editors. They 1) have a campus ambassador overseeing their work, 2) have a professor overseeing and assessing their work, 3) have received or should have received extensive in classroom training to know how to edit, 4) they are working on a unitary goal. --LauraHale (talk) 23:01, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Would appreciate feedback regarding my proposal. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:15, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Link? --LauraHale (talk) 23:01, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also unclear what you mean, Doc? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:04, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry yes here it is [2] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:48, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's so typical, Jmh649! You're the only one that knows where that page is. Those Education Project people hide away pages, either by constantly changing names or discontinuing projects. Any semblance of communication takes place on meta and not here. Now that Online Ambassador page is apparently being closed down - even though they never got beyond the "draft" step in coming up with a recall process or anything else visible in their two years of existence. Their selection process and everything else about it was completely nontransparent. No one knew what the heck was going on, and they finally admitted on meta that they had no processes and no one was in charge. They did get their travel junkets though.

What ever happened to Project Academic (or whatever it was called) that they were trumpeting just after they opened the Teahouse? I don't expect this Working Group to be any different. User:Epistemophiliac just left with the message: "Due to recent changes in the Ambassador Program it is getting harder and harder to assume good faith, so it's time for me to step back and take a break." He left a {{discouraged}} on his page. I feel that way too. I admire your ability, Jmh649, to remain optimistic. MathewTownsend (talk) 00:33, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The pages are on Wikipedia now, so thing are moving in the right direction.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:57, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Like your statement about keeping communication on-Wiki and in favor of transparency, because this trend of more and more wikipedia decisions being made away from the community eye is toxic, and part of the problem. Looks good. If you and Mike are accepted, at least that's better than many alternatives. But ... I still think we need this RFC to head the direction of enforcing college projects as we would any coordinated editing/meatpuppetry, because they are affecting consensus in bad ways. Perhaps we can restructure the RFC to focus on the specific problems and specific solutions to those problems. The ambassador program was never going to work, because there aren't enough-- we need to get the professors to stop structuring article work and grading in ways that damage content and burden knowledgeable editors with cleanup, like AFDs, merge proposals, AFC, DYK reviews, etc. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:12, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just as an FYI, I've also applied to be part of the Education Working Group; I haven't yet created a proposal but will be doing so. All proposals created so far can be found by copying "Wikipedia:Education_Program_Structure_proposals" into the search box and letting the autocomplete show you what's been created so far. (I don't think you can use the subpages query because the parent page didn't exist, last time I looked.)

I agree that there are problems with the Education Program, but I also think it could be a huge asset to the encyclopedia. I wrote an opinion piece about it for the Signpost last year; I won't repeat myself here but I'll just say I think the things the RfC cover seem to me to be real problems but I think that if we believe (as I do) that there is potential value in educational programs, then discussions such as this RfC need participation from the off-wiki players -- the professors, in other words. I don't mean that we shouldn't have an internally focused RfC, only that getting the program right will require more than that. I argued in my Signpost essay that it was important for the community to get involved and make its feelings known, since the program has the capacity to have a huge impact on Wikipedia. If this RfC can be a focus for a broad discussion of the Education Program I think that's a very positive step. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:56, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The list of people who have put forwards proposals are here [3] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:51, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My proposal was at Outreach Oceania, with the support materials having been created at File:Outreach Oceania Integrating Wikimedia into the Curriculum.pdf. It has already been rejected so not much point in going through WMF again for this, because it has already been made clear to me that I do not have the education based credentials to be involved and the measurables are not worth it. :( I don't want to go through a WMF process again like that. As I'm not competent to set up a programme as I don't understand my own needs to be successful, I would rather focus on fixing the community implementation issues. (And the WMF expression of my inability to run a programme cost at least $1,000.) --LauraHale (talk) 01:56, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Who "has already ... rejected" this proposal? We are all volunteers. ~~Would be happy to take a look at it~~. Okay have found it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:07, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

~~Where you asking for $1000 or $10,000? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:16, 20 April 2012 (UTC)~~Never mind found that to. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:17, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What we are discussing here however is more how the "Global Education Program" should be managed going forwards rather than a specific outreach event.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:20, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As this was intended as a pilot programme for developing non-disruptive editing practices with the intention of trying to get WMF projects into national curriculums? It wasn't a specific instance... but a lot of this RfC is premised on the fact that many specific examples have demonstrated they are disruptive, don't have enough guidance, don't use educational theory for course design, aren't following educational best practices... the specific example matters, just like the conflict of interest editing going on in with the psychology class matter. --LauraHale (talk) 02:31, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Which WP:COI in psychology class? I have had an a query from Micronesia to do Wikipedia health related outreach from the program coordinator for the Maternal Child Health Program, Yap, Federated States of Micronesia. Do not know if I will ever make it their though. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:58, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I love these Campus Ambassador recruitment tips! It reflects exactly the WMF attitude - how to get others to do your work for you! And this will translate to better encyclopedia articles - how? MathewTownsend (talk) 02:15, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Those proposal pages are one of the stupidest ways to organize submissions they could have imagined ... obscures and limits community involvement. Typical of the way the WMF does everything. Any reason they can't just follow the norms on Wikipedia, say for example, the way arb candidates are put forward? How is anyone going to find those subpages and give feedback. Dumb. Or smart, if feedback is what they don't want. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:07, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Simplification[edit]

Wondering if we could simplify some of the question

Examples of success for student in meeting course learning objectives and in providing non-distruptive contributions English Wikipedia are independent of the pre-engagement of Wikimedia Foundation and professor engagement with the community in soliciting assistance from the community before a course was launched. There is not need to change how courses interact with English Wikipedia prior to and during coursework to help maximize student completion of learning objectives and in being less disruptive to English Wikipedia.

Could be

Keep the status quo. Prior discussion with the community is not needed before classes begin editing.

and

Examples of success for student in meeting course learning objectives and in providing non-distruptive contributions English Wikipedia demonstrate the vital importance pre-engagement of Wikimedia Foundation and professor engagement with the community in soliciting assistance from the community before a course was launched. Coursework should not be allowed without some form of community engagement and community approval before requiring student participation.

Could be

Proposed editing projects by classes of students must be discussed with the community before beginning to edit content.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:11, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with that. I'd like to simplify the proposals themselves while still maintaining the main substance. --LauraHale (talk) 03:19, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A board for clean-up[edit]

We have already had offers to help with clean up :-) May be we could add this to the RfC such that if it does not pass at least we will have a group from which to request help.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:53, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Clean up RfC draft or clean up after psychology students? But some fix would be nice. --LauraHale (talk) 05:58, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring to clean up after students in general :-) --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's good because there was one that was nominated for GA that clearly did not meet criteria and I don't know if it actually passed DYK. :/ Requiring Good Article nominations for a class without consulting a project is just erk. :( It would be really nice if some one other than me could go through and post what the Good Article criteria are to the psychology articles, ask the peer reviewers to do their review against these and against WP:MEDRS before articles are nominated because I don't think students have been adequately prepared by their instructor or ambassador as to the guidelines. --LauraHale (talk) 06:25, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We sure do need a cleanup board (which is a sad state of affairs), but I suspect it will become an overwhelmed dumping ground, where we will again be understaffed to deal with the magnitude of the problem, because I've got scores of articles on watch that are worthless. At least that may help combat the meatpuppetry aspect, by bringing more independent eyes to the faulty articles? And no one yet has addressed the problem that professors will increasingly ignore any bureaucracy we put in place. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:43, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Education noticeboard? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:58, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Nikki Just what I was looking for.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:02, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Issues at DYK, GAN, FAC[edit]

I have suggest a solution here at our new notice board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard#Nominated_articles_and_than_not_following_through]. If we where to require a minimum number of editors or a minimum duration of account existence similar to semi protected articles we could easily address this issue. These nomination pages could be semi protected and the bots could be programmed such that an automated note is left on users talk page saying that a longer edit history / more edits are needed before GAN, etc. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:21, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I left feedback there ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:28, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Academical Village[edit]

How does Wikipedia:WikiProject Academical Village fit into all this? It "is a WikiProject for the Wikipedia Ambassador Program and school and university projects generally on English Wikipedia, and coordinates online activities among active Wikipedians in the traditional and idiosyncratic WikiProject style."

Another branch of "education program" to keep track of, with a long list of articles under their purview. It has some kind of "editorial review". MathewTownsend (talk) 18:08, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Lovely. Pretty soon consensus will mean little more than offsite meatpuppetry. Atta girl Sue Gardner, ya done good. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:28, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes but we can get involved. We can refocus where consensus is developed back to Wikipedia.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:39, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Provide feedback on outreach - might get their attention[edit]

I provided feedback at Wikipedia Education Program/US-Canada/Updates which was encourage somewhere on one of those many education pages/projects.

Here is my feedback: outreach:Wikipedia_Education_Program/US-Canada/Updates#Problems_.26_what_we_are_doing_about_them.2Flearning_from_them_8. I complained about the too many dyks. The answer was: "I spoke with Laura Hale over IRC and she was able to clear up what the issue is here. I agree; we can't have en:WP:DYK submission as a requirement in a course without making sure students understand and follow the rules of DYK. This is being addressed. User:Rob Schnautz (WMF)"

So are you satisfied now, LauraHale? My last comment was never responded to.; I hate that response: "This is being addressed." This is the response I got from all my complaints about Online Ambassadors, and from what I can tell, "Cindy", my main problem is on the selection committee that will evaluation the proposals like the one Jmh649 submitted.; I suggest we log problems at this site. It has a format that is meant to be used for the Signpost. The next one is
Week of April 23rd

Class timeline milestones
Success stories
Problems & what we are doing about them/learning from them
Other updates

MathewTownsend (talk) 19:11, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Per process what we need first is a discussion among the community here on Wikipedia. Once we have had a fair bit of discussion the next step would be to draft a RfC and have it summarized. The final step would be to submit the proposal resulting from this RfC if any to the board of the WMF for approval. Until this is done and the WMF refuses I feel we must assume good faith of all those involved.

If the community does not see their as being any problem which they might now [4] and if the community is unable to come up with any concrete solution to address it. The best we might be able to do is muddle on until such time that 1) the community see a problem 2) the community wishes to attempt to fix the problem. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:03, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But there's never been a discussion on wikipedia about any of these WMF implementations - the Online Ambassadors was/is totally lacking in transparency and I don't think the community even knows about it now. The Teahouse the same - when they screwed with the Welcome template and added their own template, there was kick back big time - but that was not only because they never asked before doing it, but also because they broke the template and the techie types were pissed. I'd say 99% of the community doesn't know and doesn't care about this education stuff. And the fact that the Education Program in its various iterations are unresponsive to feedback doesn't help. It takes real effort just to try to keep track of their various pseudo sites. (Everything happens behind the scenes - this is a WMF agenda and they're no interested in what the "community" here thinks.) MathewTownsend (talk) 21:02, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Any bets on how long before we see WP:ENB become "don't bite the newbies central"? A replay of what happened with WP:ESPERANZA. Ditto for Teahouse. I already had someone suggest we shouldn't be AFDing or proposing mergers for articles that have "course approval". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:09, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Did you ask them to post where the consensus for that was?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:15, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reading this at ANI [5] even when concerns are raised most appear not see it as an issue. If anything is to come of this editors at DYK /GAN /AfD / etc need to 1) define what the issue is 2) proposal a plan to fix it using measure within their power (I have proposed some potential fixes). If we are unable to convince the editors in these areas that their is a problem that needs fixing there is nothing more we can do. I am not convinced telling profs not to use DYKs as carrots would work even if we could do it. So what can we do when "profs try to use DYKs as carrots". Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:15, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)@ Matthew: I was told by Globono that I was biting newbies and being condescending going to classroom pages and explaining there were problems. I've also gotten into problems with tagging pages as having a WP:COI when one obviously exists (students are either paying the university to edit Wikipedia, or are getting paid by others to attend the university and edit Wikipedia) because student coursework is being prioritised over Wikipedia style guides, etc. I have gotten the impression from comments that Wikipedia's manual of style and Wikipedia's community processes should be suspended in order to facilitate classroom objectives. :/ Thus, I woke up this morning and removed all psychology related coursework articles from my watch list. (If college athletics gets mucked with, different story as I have subject area expertise and it is one article I am watching, where I have an IRC log demonstration COI.) --LauraHale (talk) 21:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A long standing editor was recently indefinitely banned for attempting to apply WP:COI and it is just a guideline. There is no enforcement of it and no really mechanism to enforce it really.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:27, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What? Can you provide more details? Indefinitely banned? How could that be a reason? MathewTownsend (talk) 21:32, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This case: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/TimidGuy ban appeal. It's quite chilling. Word heard backchannel is that Will Beback had it coming for general behaviors throughout the Wikipedia unrelated to this case, and how he conducted himself wrt this particular editor, but regardless of what facts are known privately to the arbs and not to us, someone editing with a COI and a POV and in violation of medical sourcing standards was unblocked, while someone reporting the COI to Jimbo was banned. In other words, COI is a touchy matter now, and the lesson on the street is don't tackle COI cases, might get yerself into trouble. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:41, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Part of the evidence to ban him is his comment "Tell that to the ArbCom."[6] which supposedly shows a "battlefield mentality". Sets a bad tone when criticizing arbcom is used by arbcom to ban you indefinitely (I thought one was not allowed to us admin tools for disputes that you are involved in). Was a desysoping offense if I remember correctly. The person who drafted this does not have a high opinion of physicians editing Wikipedia either but that is another story.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:02, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

By the way Jmh649, are you aware that the Wikipedia:Global Education Program doesn't exist anymore? MathewTownsend (talk) 23:24, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I know there has been a name change to Wikipedia Education Program which is a better name.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:12, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ready to be moved to mainspace?[edit]

Taking a good look at this, I think it looks about ready to moved to mainspace. What are other's opinions? Would someone be willing to do the move? ^OohBunnies! Leave a message 01:42, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think some of the proposals still need further simplification. Hearing feedback at other venues such as here [7] it seems that most of the community does not consider their to be any problem. More discussion is needed IMO. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:53, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I absolutely would have opposed the changes you suggested. The problem is not the processes. The problem is instructors requiring as part of course assessment students complete DYKs and GAs while not informing them about guidelines, supervising their edits, and not informing these processes that students were using them as part of coursework. You did not propose "Students be blocked from these processes unless the project is consulted" when going to them, but suggested new contributors AS A WHOLE regardless of their inclusion of coursework should be blocked from them. (This is way beyond the scope of anything this RfC is trying to do.) And if you could make an attempt at simplification, that would be great. --LauraHale (talk) 02:31, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We can request that the WMF recommend profs not use these processes. But how will this be policed? Some want profs to use DYK. My feeling is that "new users" who just come here on their own will not figure out these processes exist until they have edited for a while thus this change would not effect them. Only people who have had instruction on these processes will realize that they exist within their first 10 or 50 edits. If all you wish is that the WMF/Wikipedia Education program recommend profs not use these processes I would support this. I might work. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:12, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, please no. Please do not move this RFC to mainspace in its current condition. The issues are not explained anywhere, important discussions are not linked, and the RFC in its current format is unlikely to generate any consensus. This is still overwhelmingly ineffective, nowhere are the issues clearly explained, there is too much info in places where no one will read it, and in its current state, no one will access or understand the extent of the problems, which are not succinctly explained anywhere. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:08, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For and against views[edit]

As a random reminder, this page is being designed as a potential DRAFT. It is not a place to vote and will not be until some one moves it to the main space. If some one feels it is ready and is willing to set up the proper certification of it, then please feel free to move. --LauraHale (talk) 13:55, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fundamental premise of this RFC is flawed[edit]

I wrote this as a response to one of the proposals in the RFC and Laura aptly reminded me that now is not the time for inclusion of these type comments in the RFC draft. This would establish a dangerous precedent for WP. It is a false premise to categorize students and/or instructors as outside the WP community and all other editors inside the community. Once anyone begins editing WP, regardless of motivation, they are part of the community. In this case, the newcomers are being motivated to contribute by Academia, but they are new editors none the less. They need to be treated and welcomed just like any newcomer is welcomed mentored and taught the norms of the community. This indeed may be challenging, but it is the WP way.

I believe extreme care should be taken in wording this RFC so as not to run afoul of the 3rd pillar of our WP:Five Pillars which I quote the 1st two sentences below for conveinence: Wikipedia is free content that anyone can edit, use, modify, and distribute. Respect copyright laws, and do not plagiarize sources. Students and instructors, the minute they make edits in WP are part of the community. The USEP and its ambassadors are working hard with Academia to make WP a teaching tool in the classrooms of higher education. anyone can edit, use, modify, and distribute is a phrase where use is especially applicable in this discussion. Editing articles, researching articles, using WP as a tool to teach good sourcing and good referencing skills, using WP as a source of content to analyze and evaluate, using WP assessment processes to teach collaboration, peer review skills and all sorts of other stuff is going on in the classrooms of higher education. Indeed we as a community have to sort out big issues, but students, academics and universities are doing exactly what pillar #3 intends--use free content for whatever purposes they deem appropriate. I don't think we want to set any kind of precedent that stifles that in the future. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong. On two aspects. The first is that the first pillar is "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia". It is not a jotter for you to do your homework on. The second is that "use" means the content, not the editing facilities and servers. You can take our content and use it for whatever you want. You can't press the edit button and do what ever you want. Unless you are here to help build the encyclopaedia, you are not part of the community. If folk can find a way for students to help build this encyclopaedia while learning something, that is great. I'm afraid my experience is that WP is not being used to teach "good sourcing and good referencing, collaboration, peer review skills, etc". In addition, the kind of sourcing and kind of articles that students are typically expected to write are completely different to those an encyclopaedia needs (for example, no original research, no essays, and build on what secondary sources have to say rather than review the primary literature for oneself). Colin°^Talk 21:34, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are (important) areas of the encyclopedia where most content is written by students. As an example, if you're looking at an article on an intellectual property related cyberlaw case, except for the most major cases, it was probably written almost entirely by a UC Berkeley student participating in the education program. Yes, the kind of articles that students are typically expected to write are completely different than those an encyclopedia needs - in many cases, this is almost the entire point of using a Wikipedia based assignment in a class.

Students are here to help build an encyclopedia; almost universally, where there are problems with student editing, it stems from a lack of a full understanding of our editing policies and culture, not from anything else. Just like any new editors, students don't come to Wikipedia with a full understanding of our policies and culture.

The proposal in the RfC as it stands that unapproved classes would be summarily blocked would be an unprecedented abrogation of the idea that anyone can edit. There's next to no chance it would achieve community consensus, and if it did, I'm almost positive it would be blocked at a WMF level.

The second proposal in the meatpuppetry section of the RfC as it stands also badly fails to mesh with existing policy or precedent, in addition to trying to usurp the normal role of the closing administrator. AfD's (and similar processes) are not votes; the closing administrator decides them based on the strength of policy based arguments advanced. The suggestion that a long standing editor could be blocked for expressing an opinion on an AfD just because another editor with an affiliation with the education program has already expressed an opinion on the same AfD is - literally - ridiculous.

If made live in anything resembling it's current state, this RfC will certainly fail to establish consensus about anything whatsoever, and will almost certainly fail to result in productive dialog. I would encourage those involved in drafting it to either redraft it - starting pretty much from scratch - or find other productive ways to help address the problems that some education program classes do produce. (And yes, I know there are notable problems with the education program, especially w/r/t medical sourcing.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:55, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Colin - I think you generalize too much about what students do and are expected to do re writing, research, etc. Just today, at Montana State University, 3 WP Ambassadors have been mentoring 75 freshmen writing class students as they finished up their term WP assignment--expanding stubs and creating new articles. I can say without a doubt that the overall quality of their writing, research and sourcing is far and above the average off the street newcomer. They are all now WP editors and part of the community, and trust me they were motivated to help build the encyclopedia. Let's not underestimate them or marginalize them because everything is not perfect. --Mike Cline (talk) 22:31, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You may have better experiences that me, and it wouldn't be at all hard to have more experience than me. I've dealt with a huge class (1500 students, fortunately only a few hundred of which could be bothered) who were very much not here to build an encyclopaedia, led by a professor who was very much not part of the community, and none of them became WP editors. I can say without a doubt that that excercise harmed Wikipedia. And after publishing an analysis of it, the response I got from WMF was "great, I'm glad to hear they are doing it again this spring". Fortunately, that seemed to have not happened. I've also seen some of the examples Sandy's had to deal with at DYK where students all pick the same subject, write similar essays and all create separate and completely unnecessary articles in which to publish their essays online.

We don't need ostrich behaviour where people refuse to see the problems and describe students as though the sun shines out of them. We have to understand that students are here firstly to get their grades. And professors are here firstly because they are paid to teach students. Once we accept that, rather than pretend these folk are on the same level as volunteers, then we can work to address the pros and cons of that. Comparing students with the "average off the street newcomer" is a false argument. Because it is not an either/or. Different populations. Different strengths and weaknesses. For medical articles, for example, we certainly don't need students editing advanced subjects they actually know nothing about because the've only just started their first-year lectures.

I haven't had time to study this RFC in detail. I'm just responding to Mike's comments. I strongly disagree with the idea that folk can use WP how they like for what they like. If professors run a class that is so badly designed and organised that they harm hundreds of important articles, that to me is much worse than some radio DJ asking listeners to vandalise the article of some celebrity chef or whatever. Colin°^Talk 08:01, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the analysis that this RfC will achieve little. There are however problems that have occurred that need to be addressed / prevented. What we need is further discussion on how to address these issues before we will be able to move forwards with an RfC.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:34, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Doc James; there are clearly problems, and I don't know anyone associated with the Education Program who would deny that, but I don't think there has been enough discussion of the issues for it to be clear what the thrust of the RfC should be. I think WP:ENB, or perhaps the talk page of that board, might be a good central location for discussions. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:20, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am on board with Doc James and Mike Christie here. There are issues that need resolution. But an RFC that prematurely sanctions instructors and students as being outside the community isn't the way to proceed. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:44, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We however may need policies that address groups of editors who are editing together. How we deal with / manage these sorts of editors may need to be different than how we manage other new editors. I guess there are three main questions 1) what do we expect from students / profs 2) what can we do to help guide students / profs in this direction 3) what actions do we wish to take with those who do not achieve our expectations after a reasonable effort. Anyway will move this to the page above.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:05, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree that the premise of this RFC is flawed, but I do agree (and said long ago) that the formulation of the RFC is faulty and unlikely to yield anything positive. It doesn't focus on the problems, hence can't focus on solutions to them, and as we can see here on talk there are many editors who haven't edited in the most problematic areas or aren't aware of the extent of the problems with student editing. If the RFC doesn't do a good job of making those problems clear, it can't generate solutions. There are enormous and unaddressed problems with these programs, this is damaging content and de-motivating established editors, we aren't seeing students remain as regular editors, and we do have some ostrich tendencies in evidence from some folks involved (evidenced in this very thread, and in some of the earlier threads at WP:ENB, although that seems to be turning around now and perhaps some collaboration will result).

As an aside, I've just noticed today that Nikkimaria removed two more student DYKs for close paraphrasing (easily spotted as student editing by the very narrow topics). As the term-end approaches and they put their articles up, we'll see more problems.

We do need to decide how to handle the "coordinated editing" aspect of student editing, wrt how it influences consensus at places like AFD. We have no policy or guideline that covers this: neither our WP:MEAT nor the arbcom findings on coordinated editing cover the unique situation of classmembers, profs, and Education Program followers working together to preserve student essays that would likely be deleted if these folks weren't "voting en bloc" for lack of a better defined Wiki term for what is happening there.

And in the truly trivial department, I wish we would do something about two smaller but equally irritating issues: many classes are not tagging the talk pages of articles they are working on (which means established editors can't help guide their work and often end up reverting faulty content that was a waste of student effort resulting in them learning little); and profs encourage students to make talk page posts which amount to nothing but WP:NOTAFORUM rah, rah, I like "your" article (WP:OWN), which makes those blooming articles pop on my watchlist so I'm constantly checking articles only to find rah, rah posts. (These two minor issues are related: it's usually the rah rah posts that tip me off to student editing-- they both waste student time and established editor time. If they'd tag the articles when the term begins, I could watch their sandboxes and guide them in ways their profs and OAs certainly aren't.)

And, I've just seen this post describing ongoing problems with a course that has been particularly problematic to indeed perhaps disruptive this term. There is another problem with this blooming program, that it is so decentralized and spread out and poorly coordinated that problems are discussed all over creation and it's hard to figure out where or how to get coordinated efforts towards solutions. That is one thing this RFC should be doing. We've now got a message board that had some start-up issues where WMF staff seemed to display a heavy hand in keeping out criticism, yet a centralized place for dealing with the education programs is needed, and everyone involved could be encouraged to bring all of those issues to one place. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:21, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please fix the premise? I'm just not capable. Beyond that, I've taken a battleaxe to some of the psychology articles after failing them. (One of them had merge tags placed before article nomination and no sign of fixing that.) The problems were on the article before. The WP:GAN criteria that is the most OBVIOUS of them to me is fully supported by inline citations and I don't think a single one that was quickfailed had that (unless it had major tags). The instructor should be categorically BLOCKED from contributing again. He KNEW KNEW KNEW KNEW there were problems with the student DYK nominations. This was made ABUNDANTLY clear to him. Maybe one article got through. And then all those GAs got nominated in a single day that just like DYK OBVIOUSLY did not meet the easy to verify criteria. Anyway, if some one could check my battleaxing to make sure I didn't make things worse, that would be good. I don't quite completely get WP:MEDRS but most sources I battle axed as MEDRS violations were because the abstract I found clearly stated it was the findings of the researcher. --LauraHale (talk) 14:37, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can't fix it-- I don't write well enough, and when you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to drain the swamp. Someone else needs to re-formulate the RFC. It's term end, and student problems are popping up everywhere. Working on the RFC after the term ended would have been easier. Mike Christie is one of the best RFC formulators on Wikipedia. I do agree with you that the prof and the OAs from that course need to be disinvited from the program ... that course has arguably been disruptive to Wikipedia in terms of wasted editor time, and has generated very little useful content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:42, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)One of the problems is that the students don't always understand (and sometimes don't read) the guidance that the OAs (and CAs and profs) provide, so to say that you could guide them in ways the profs and OAs aren't is a bit unfair to the OAs, some (perhaps most or all) of whom have given good advice to the students. I think one of the open questions is whether guidance is a primary or secondary issue -- the WMF has done a lot of work to try to get better guidance to the students via the CA and OA programs, and via handouts and so forth. More could be done (that's always true) but I don't think we should assume that it's guidance problems are the root cause in every case. For example, it might be that the course isn't structured in a way that incents the students to spend enough time on-wiki to understand the issues; or perhaps the rubric for the course doesn't require the students to react to comments and critiques from outside their class. If there are classes with those issues (and I don't know if there are) then better guidance would have little effect. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:24, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with your first statement, Mike-- and I go back to the way Jbmurray ran his courses. Once I realize students are editing, I can go back and look in their sandboxes and see that neither the profs nor the OAs are apparently even watchlisting the student work. In one case, even though I most clearly flagged repeat instances of copyio (outright cut and paste) in a student's work, the professor insisted that I show him where it was ... in other words, no one was even watchlisting that page. It is not unfair to ask OAs or profs to watchlist student editing pages. How the heck are profs grading if they don't even know which students are plagiarizing, and why isn't someone checking article history, student talk, or student contribs to know if they are edit warring to reinstate faulty content, committing copyvio, etc? What do the profs think their job is here, after unleashing ill-prepared students to real-time publishing??? Better guidance could have an effect: if I know students are editing an article, I can watchlist their sandboxes and intervene earlier. As it is, I usually have to remove all of their work on medical articles, and rewrite the darn articles myself. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:38, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My point is just that guidance could have an effect, as you say, but only if it's followed -- and if it isn't followed, more may be wrong than just the guidance. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:09, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gotcha. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:17, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We need to make sure we are on top of issues before someone reports plagiarism to the press resulting in a University expelling students with respect to their work on Wikipedia. This will happen eventually if we are not careful. I find it strange that some profs do not take this concern seriously.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:02, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

yep ... that's one reason I don't feel it's my job to tell profs when their students are plagiarizing. I consider the whole mess to be the fault of profs and the WMF for promoting this program, and I don't want to be part of ruining some kid's life. The profs should be watchlisting, they should deal with it off-Wiki, in their classroom. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:17, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is no doubt that this RFC draft is well intentioned and the problems that some editors are having with instructor/student contributions are real. We do need to work out solutions to maximize the benefit to the encyclopedia from these contributions. However, I think great care must be taken not to generalize too much from a small sample of problems (no matter how disruptive one might think they are) and paint the entire Global Education Program as disruptive and harmful to the encyclopedia. As editors we are focused on the tactical day-to-day of building the encyclopedia—all in our own ways on topics and processes we are interested in. Because we are tactically focused, we lose sight of much larger community goals. When that happens, discussions like this go to places completely contrary to important strategic goals. The Global Education Program exists for a reason. Those reasons are clearly outlined in the WMF Strategic Plan. If those in this discussion haven’t read this document, especially the goals around participation and innovation, you should. We need to be focusing on finding and disseminating the best practices within the Global Education Program, practices that are generating the results we want—more contributions, new editors, quality research, sourcing and editing and collaboration. We need to fix problems, but those fixes can’t go counter to our communities’ strategic goals. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:32, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh my. This kind of thinking is just ... never mind. "Small sample of problems" indeed. Yes, some of us did not just fall off the turnip truck and are well aware of what WMF calls its Strategic Plan. Wow, just imagine that some of us may have even worked as strategic planners for several corporations that knew how to plan strategically (WMF isn't one of those). You're presumably familiar with the concept of opportunity cost? Encouraging student editing to the extent of losing valuable editors isn't wise. Please stop patronizing. There are problems; let's get heads outta sand and work on them. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:42, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've just visited your user page, and see that we have very similar backgrounds-- very cool userpage, like your stuff. So, I repeat-- you should know better-- head outta sand please! And per ongoing frustration with this program, it took me far too long to figure that you are apparently the campus ambassador for one small school? If that is correct, talk about "small samples" :) :) I'm talking about thousands of students and legions of courses affecting medical topics. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the kudos on my user page. MSU is not a small school--14,000 students. We operate as a team of CAs--one experienced Wikipedian (me), a library archivist and a library academic whose expertise is media and information literacy. As a team we've just finished out third term working with a Native American studies professor and a English professor who teaches freshman writing. We've improved our processes and results with students each term. We also routinely teach WP basics in several freshman orientation courses and have promoted WP as a teaching tool to all the Native American libraries throughout Montana. Its clear from your perspective that having students edit medical articles is problematic (it would be problematic if I tried as well). But I don't think there is widespread evidence that other topic areas--culture, pop culture, politics, sports, history, geography, etc are experiencing the pain you seem to be experiencing. We have different perspectives--you see tramatic bleeding, I see mild contusions. Whatever we fix, let's make sure we abide by: Primum non nocere --Mike Cline (talk) 16:42, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK ... it would be wonderful if you could bring more of your experience to bear on the problematic courses and professors ... but please don't downplay the significance of the problems in schools where the programs aren't run as well as yours may be (I don't know, haven't looked at the content, take your word for it that quality content is being generated). Student editing has potential to do that harm in medical areas. More importantly, relative to your experience, we should be looking at ways to replicate programs that are working, rather than denying that some aren't. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:36, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An FYI[edit]

At ANI, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=489487995#Possible_class_project_creating_essay-like_articles SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:00, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

query about all this[edit]

I'm not clear why "student" editing should be treated any differently than edits by any other new editors. To me it's kind of like the paid editor issue. Shouldn't their edits be judged on the basis of the quality of their additions to the encyclopedia instead of who they are? Shouldn't the standards be the same for everyone? I admit I got all upset over the many dyks posted all at once related to the Big Five personality traits. And so I posted about this and created a big stew. Maybe this was a one-off or a few-off experience. I'm really not clear if "student" edits or articles are worse than the average newbie edit. Is there statistical evidence supporting this? Are these edits worse than those made by new editors in 2002 or when ever this place opened up and editors started editing, learning as they went? MathewTownsend (talk) 19:42, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The standards should be the same for everyone. We have clear rules about out-of-channel coordination to do things like save articles up for AfD, involving blocking people for meat puppetry. The key question is why these aren't being enforced in some of these cases. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:16, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We may need slightly different regulations for groups of good faith editors. Especially when they come with some different motivations ( ie. get a good grade ) than our usual editors. I am not convinced everyone needs to be treated the same. A profs who is leading 50 students is different than a random editor.

Also the WM movement is spending large sums of money to promote and run this program. Because we are putting some much into it we should expect more from these new editors than the standard new editor.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:20, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sample issue[edit]

As far as I can tell, this is a Campus Ambassador passing one of his student's DYKs. This is the kind of manipulation of review processes and consensus that led to this RFC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:11, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sandy, did the CA in this case violate the intent and spirit of DYK Reviewing? If so, then that CA (an inexperienced one it seems) needs to be informed in a collaborative way of the error. Characterizing the act as a manipultation of the review process seems to be counter to WP:AGF. --Mike Cline (talk) 00:35, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Claim that LauraHale was satisfied her complain was taken care of[edit]

[8] - This from the outreach. wikimedia.org where your "complaint" about DYK was discussed.[9]
Some of my complaints are listed there. Now though, the page has been blanked and redirected. MathewTownsend (talk) 00:07, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]