Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:32, 27 February 2013

Purpose of this page			Using this page
This page is for discussion related to student assignments and the Misplaced Pages Education Program. Please feel free to post, whether you're from a class, a potential class, or if you're a Misplaced Pages editor. Topics for this board might include: Content issues created by real or potential student assignments Improving student assignment output quality per the RfC Questions about the trainings or any question from instructors or students Discussion of the Wiki Education Foundation or the Misplaced Pages Education Program. Students who have done great work and need {{The Excellent New Editor's Barnstar}} Of course, we should remain civil towards all participants and assume good faith. There are other pages more appropriate for dealing with certain specific issues: An issue requiring immediate administrator attention → Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents Vandalism by non-participating students from schools → administrator intervention against vandalism. Cut-and-paste moves/history merge → the cut-and-paste move repair holding pen. Students revealing sensitive personal information → requests for oversight. Please DO NOT make such requests here; reports here are visible to everyone. Course announcements from dashboard.wikiedu.org / outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org → /Wiki Ed course submissions Issues related to dashboard.wikedu.org / outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org → meta:Talk:Programs & Events Dashboard For a list of topics that students should avoid editing → Misplaced Pages:General sanctions#Active sanctions			Shortcuts WP:EDUN WP:ENB "Start a new discussion thread". Use an informative title: ==Informative title==. If a thread is related to an ongoing discussion, consider placing it under a level-3 heading within that existing discussion. You should generally notify any user who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{ping}} to do so, or simply link their username when you post your comment. It is not required to contact students when their edits are only being discussed in the context of a class-wide problem. If no comments have been made within 30 days, your post and any responses will be automatically archived. Please sign all contributions, using four tilde characters "~~~~". If discussion is already ongoing elsewhere or if there is a more natural location for a discussion, please continue the discussion there, and put a short note with a link to the relevant location on this page. If you cannot edit this page because it is protected, please place your comments on this page and they will be addressed. Managing threads If you'd like to make sure a thread does not get archived automatically after 30 days, use {{Do not archive until}} at the top of the section. Use {{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}} within a section to have it archived (more or less) immediately. A brief Archives page lists them with the years in which those now inactive discussions took place. If you encounter new editors who appear to be students in a class project, but they have not identified their class, you can place Template:Welcome student (or, where appropriate, Template:Welcome medical student) on their user talk pages. Wiki Education Foundation only supports classes in Canada and the US. Classes in all other countries are supported by other organizations.

Archives

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Template:Active editnotice

Massive Open Online Course(s) about Misplaced Pages

In my volunteer capacity, I've posted a draft Individual Engagement Grant proposal on Meta: meta:Grants:IEG/Wikipedia Massive Open Online Courses. If you're interested in the idea of a Misplaced Pages course on one of the new MOOC systems like Coursera or edX, please take a look and give feedback.--ragesoss (talk) 02:59, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

A quick update: it looks like we have a professor to head a Misplaced Pages course on Coursera, which could potentially have tens of thousands of students (although only a fraction of that would be active in the course, and the course itself would require only very basic Misplaced Pages editing—the main potential benefit being the fraction who choose to become active editors on their own). The public discussion period for the grant proposal runs to February 22, so if you are interested and want to support the proposal (or you think it's a terrible idea and want to have your voice heard), now's the time to weigh in.--ragesoss (talk) 02:41, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Darren Stephens (talk)

Name

Darren Stephens

Institution

University of Hull

Course title and description

Psychology of Internet Behaviour. This is for final year undergraduate students on the following degrees: BSc Web Design and Developemnt, BA (Hons) Digital Arts, BA (Hons) Design for Digital Media, and BA (Hons) Digital Media Studies within the School of Arts & New Media. In the past both ToniSant and I have used the wiki platform to introduce students to examples of internet behaviour, observed through participation in the wiki context.

Assignment plan

Like ToniSant's module above, the students are being assigned specific articles related to the subject (for the most part existing articles) and adding or fixing information within Misplaced Pages guidelines. The course ran in a similar vein last year and the staff involved (including me) plan to do something broadly similar this time around.See this page for further details.

Number of students

approx 30

Start and end dates

Jan 28-May 8 2013 (with practical work beginning mid Feb)

Endorse; looks good. Will find someone to give you the instructor user right so you can create the course. Hang tight, and welcome! —Theopolisme (talk) 15:54, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Done. Dcoetzee 20:24, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Secondary sources

A new student group will edit pages on my watchlist, and they have started to present their plans. And everyday I find myself pleading to students (and their teacher) to use secondary sources instead of primary sources. Could you please help me make my text better so it gets really clear for the students why, and so I (and other editors) can just copy and glue it? This is what I wrote last time (and I am not very happy with this text):

All sources you mention are WP:primary sources, that is, results of single studies. In order to know if the results of these studies really represent encyclopedic information, you need to know if the results have been peer-reviewed and replicated. For that, you need WP:secondary sources, such as reviews (however, the introduction of a primary source can be a review-like, when the authors discuss numerous results of earlier studies). So please, reconsider your choice of journals and use secondary sources instead!

Thank you! Lova Falk talk 08:55, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't complicate things with the "(however, the introduction of a primary source can be a review-like, when the authors discuss numerous results of earlier studies)" part. Such sections in papers are weak secondary sources as they may only discuss earlier studies that support the author's research angle, or even just discuss earlier studies by the author -- they don't need to comprehensively and impartially document the consensus from the body of literature, which is what we're after. I think professional or advanced academic textbooks (i.e. not undergraduate introductory textbooks) are also worth mentioning -- these students should have access to a good library so let's make them use it rather than sit on their backsides surfing PubMed, etc. If they are medical articles, then take the opportunity to mention WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS -- both are not only applicable guidelines but give advice on searching for and citing such works. Colin° 10:45, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Also, it is worth dropping a note on the talk page of the prof running those students' course. They do have access to literature that mentions these things and should be aware of these policies and guidelines. Appropriate sources for Misplaced Pages (which are quite different to appropriate sources for academic essays) should be factored into the marking scheme for student work. If they claim to be unaware of them, then we should escalate the issue because no official student program should be ignorant of this issue. Students doing their own original academic literature reviews of the primary research make Misplaced Pages worse. Colin° 10:52, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! So here comes my new text:

All sources you mention are WP:primary sources, that is, results of single studies. In order to know if the results of these studies really represent encyclopedic information, you need to know if the results have been peer-reviewed and replicated. For that, you need WP:secondary sources, such as reviews, or WP:tertiary sources, such as professional or advanced academic textbooks (i.e. not undergraduate introductory textbooks). So please, reconsider your choice of journals and use secondary sources instead!

I do usually contact the prof. One of them was aware of this issue, but he thought that telling the students to use primary sources was a good way of "pushing" Misplaced Pages into using more primary sources... Lova Falk talk 12:23, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I've just spotted, the "you need to know if the results have been peer-reviewed and replicated" bit, which is problematic. The original research paper was peer-reviewed in order to get published in a quality journal in the first place -- I know the "review" is another form of peer-review but this just complicates things. Also, many studies don't get replicated -- they may be quite sufficient in themselves or there simply isn't enough interest/money to conduct/publish any replication. The merits of secondary sources are manifold. Perhaps it is simpler to just state (per WP:PRIMARY) that "Misplaced Pages articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources" and point them at WP:MEDRS or WP:OR as suitable. I despair about your prof telling students to use primary sources. This is, of course, standard academic practice. Misplaced Pages is rather odd in this regard as it is an artefact our anonymous/unverifiable and unrecruited editor base. It should be one of the first things to explain to any profs starting here: Misplaced Pages is not an academic paper or essay! -- Colin° 13:42, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Colin's advice to point to WP:MEDRS. It's often better to ask students to read existing policies and guidelines than to try to summarize them oneself. I'll also put in a plug for encouraging both the instructor and the students to read Misplaced Pages:Assignments for student editors‎. And, for that matter, you can follow the advice in that essay yourself, and treat student edits pretty much the same as edits by anyone else, so if the sourcing is poor, it can be tagged or reverted. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:25, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Very good point to omit the peer-reviewed part. Here comes the new text:

All sources you mention are WP:primary sources, that is, results of single studies. However, Misplaced Pages is not an academic paper or essay! Misplaced Pages articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources (for instance, reviews) and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources (such as professional or advanced academic textbooks -i.e. not undergraduate introductory textbooks). WP:MEDRS describes how to identify reliable sources for medical information, which is a good guideline for many psychology articles as well. So please, reconsider your choice of journals and use secondary sources instead!

Please comment! Lova Falk talk 10:13, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't count professional academic textbooks as tertiary sources. From my limited experience, I'd say they were similar to reviews in that regard. I'm thinking about the ones that are huge multi-author works where each chapter is like a review written by one or a few authors. It is typically a much more comprehensive treatment of the whole subject than the accasional review that appears in a journal, though publishing cycles of new editions may mean some of these works are less up-to-date. University undergraduate textbooks are more like tertiary sources. They aren't bad from a WP:V point of view but may give the subject superficial treatment or lack rigorous explanations. So how about "Misplaced Pages articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources (for instance, journal reviews and professional or advanced academic textbooks) and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources (such as undergraduate textbooks)." -- Colin° 10:43, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! I have already started to copy and paste the text to students. Here comes the latest version:

All sources you mention are WP:primary sources, that is, results of single studies. However, Misplaced Pages is not an academic paper or essay! Misplaced Pages articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources (for instance, journal reviews and professional or advanced academic textbooks) and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources (such as undergraduate textbooks). WP:MEDRS describes how to identify reliable sources for medical information, which is a good guideline for many psychology articles as well. So please, reconsider your choice of journals and use secondary sources instead!

Lova Falk talk 10:54, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Colin and Tryptofish for your help! Unfortunately, I have already had several occasions today for pasting this text (sometimes with minor adjustments). Lova Falk talk 19:07, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Why are Education Program pages not normal Misplaced Pages pages

The page Education Program:Davidson College/Cognitive Psychology (2013 Q1) doesn't have either Edit or View Source tabs and the history doesn't show the diffs. Therefore if the prof or their ambassador edit the page, I can't see what or when they made the change. This can be a problem if I comment on the course details (such as assignments being set the students) and then later I look and the text has changed. I can't see when or how it changed. Why do these pages work this way. I can understand protecting them in some way but there seems no good reason to hide the source or diffs -- it doesn't help transparency. Colin° 12:41, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

It's because the pages contain a combination of wiki text and structured data fields, and MediaWiki doesn't know how to make diffs or display the source outside of the custom course page edit mode, until the extension gets recoded to use the "ContentHandler" features that have been developed for Wikidata. (See this bug for related issues.) The plan is to do that work after the first wave of classes is over, as is it a significant coding project.

Currently, admins and anyone with instructor or campus/online volunteer user rights can Edit course pages, and that's the only way to view the source at this point. The {{course page wizard}} that many courses use (and which is now preloaded for new courses, so most from here on out should use it) has a hack-y workaround for these issues: all the actual course page content (aside from the Summary and Students parts) is actually stored on Talk subpages (which are normal wiki pages), and there are edit links from within the page that take you to them. The class you're looking at doesn't use the wizard, though, so there's no way to see diffs. However, if you watchlist the course (by adding the talk page to your watchlist), then changes will show up in your watchlist so that you know when changes were made. The history tab has the same info of times and edit summaries.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:23, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. The history tab is pretty meaningless if the prof doesn't use edit summaries. I assume admins can't see diffs either -- just the current edit text. Well the sooner this gets fixed the better. Colin° 19:33, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I assume admins can't see diffs either - Yes.

the sooner this gets fixed the better - Yes.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 19:36, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

And this also means Special:Log/course would show diff's, right? At this point if a bunch of students edit their course page and alter their own assignment, would anyone be able to pinpoint who did that? Biosthmors (talk) 20:45, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure how it will be reorganized; it may be that changes show up as edits rather than log entries. In any cases, yes, there will be diffs. (Note that students cannot edit course pages, only those with the extension-specific user rights or admins can. I think we'll also want to change it so that the main text area of course pages is editable by anyone, but that will also require switching to ContentHandler first, so we wouldn't do that until we had working diffs.)--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 20:56, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Good to know thanks again. Biosthmors (talk) 21:20, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Regional ambassador user rights

I applied, interviewed, and was accepted as a outreach:Regional Ambassadors/Current. I suppose someone (or me) should add myself to that list. (Is it otherwise updated, by the way?) From what Jami told me I think I'm more of an ambassador at large, though I am based in Atlanta if anything arises there. I do need the WP:Course coordinator right to grant rights to campus ambassadors, when that time comes. I'm currently a course campus volunteer and a course online volunteer. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 18:24, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Done, by Ohanaunited. Feel free to add yourself to the list. As I suggested on the talk page over on Outreach, in my opinion it would make sense to move the Regional Ambassador stuff over to Misplaced Pages.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 19:40, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I can view source but not edit that page, just the talk page. I agree it makes sense to have it here. Biosthmors (talk) 22:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

At Misplaced Pages:Regional Ambassadors. Biosthmors (talk) 21:21, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Course coordinator user right

Just a little clarification... the user right referred to above is actually the Course coordinator right, which is not limited to Regional Ambassadors (although no one but Regional Ambassadors plus me and Jami have it right now, I think). If anyone else who isn't an admin (in which case, the coordinator right is superfluous) would like to help distribute the instructor right to users who request it (and do the same for new ambassadors / class volunteers), let's work out a procedure for requesting it. It could be as simple as posting a request on this page, and if there's consensus that the user is sufficiently clueful, that's it.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 15:25, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Priorities: quality and quantity

I am under the impression that our educational material (such as Misplaced Pages:Training/For students/Choosing articles 3) emphasizes quantity of new prose to the detriment of quality improvement (in terms of the opportunity cost). Quality could be improved by reducing word count through copy-editing and changing prose by updating sources when needed. For example, one of my best contributions last year was to review malaria (see Talk:Malaria/GA2). As you can see under the collapsed section "some addressed comments", there was a lot we did to improve the article. While it stayed a "B-Class" before and after (I was still finding problems with WP:V even at the end of the review), I think it went from a low-quality B-Class article to a high-quality B-Class article. Shouldn't students and professors be encouraged to engage on the talk pages of articles like this to improve important subjects? Along those lines, I am wary of any assignment that asks students to create new articles, unless they have been agreed upon by knowledgeable Wikipedians. Again, I feel this is a quantity over quality incentive we have currently baked into the system for ourselves. Thoughts? Biosthmors (talk) 19:05, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Some classes definitely edit talk pages, add sources, and contribute a very low quantity of content. I think we have to remember that using Misplaced Pages in the classroom will never be a one-size-fits-all situation, which is true of all classroom assignments. The thing is, a lot of the student learning experiences (which are typically the main reason professors want their students to edit Misplaced Pages in the first place) come when they do a significant amount of research on one topic to add to that relevant article (or create a new one). I know it can seem overwhelming for students to create new articles, but one thing I try to keep in mind is that these are new editors, just as the articles are new articles (or stubs). A lot of Misplaced Pages articles have started off in a state that took some shaping over time to become significantly better, but we have to start somewhere when trying to fill in those gaps. And a lot of the articles students are adding are seriously really good, even when they lack some Misplaced Pages norms.

The problem is that pages such as this one also strongly give that impression. It seems to be Frank Schulenberg's project in particular to provide a "leaderboard" or "student ranking" judged merely in terms of quantity of characters/bytes added to the Encyclopedia. There was a discussion of this here, though (as is his wont) Frank didn't contribute. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 05:33, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Also, though the student trainings are geared to help students out according to whatever their assignment may be, the professor trainings and other materials do emphasize expanding articles rather than creating a new article. In regards to new articles being agreed upon by knowledgeable Wikipedians: it's hard to imagine how that would ever scale to all the students editing Misplaced Pages, but, more importantly, I think that's one of the best things classes can contribute to Misplaced Pages—even if a professor does not take the time to edit her/himself, s/he can still identify those gaps in scholarship, as the content expert, and encourage students to edit accordingly. Just some thoughts. PS So sorry I got your username wrong last week! I see it so often that it was very silly of me. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 21:49, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I also think we send the message of: "don't even think about editing developed articles" in the educational training materials. I think this sends the wrong message to new editors. We have some medical articles up to featured status, but they could probably all be improved with updated sources (see WP:MEDDATE). Why shouldn't students be encouraged to help make decent articles great again? Medicine, like any science-based field, undergoes continual evolution. Articles in evolving fields shouldn't ever be considered "finished" even if they become featured. Biosthmors (talk) 22:27, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

For example, take a look at the counterproductive "stub"/new article factory that appears to be causing us problems here. Biosthmors (talk) 19:04, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Why shouldn't students instead be encouraged to take an important C-Class topic and bring it up to B-Class? Or to fix up a low-quality B-class subject to a high-quality B-Class article? Those seem like the assignments Misplaced Pages needs. Biosthmors (talk) 19:07, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages talk:Training

FYI, Sage has outlined a plan at Misplaced Pages talk:Training there to update the trainings, and there is a possibility the trainings will be translated. I would like to help with improving the trainings and education material also. Anyone else? Biosthmors (talk) 21:29, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

A translation to Portuguese is already underway. Others may (or may not) be done later on. Also, the plan I posted is my first draft or a work plan for myself, which I haven't yet talked about with the higher-ups; the Global Education Program team is in the midst of this transition from running a few individual programs to running no programs directly but providing support for the broad swath of autonomous education programs in different languages and countries, so we're trying to make sure most of what I'm doing is relevant beyond just en.wiki.

In any case, help improving the trainings is very welcome.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:59, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Good to know, thanks. I suppose there might be some "synergy" between wp:training and training for the cool looking m:Grants:IEG/Wikipedia Massive Open Online Courses? Biosthmors (talk) 18:20, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Education Working group proposal marked "historical"

This is just an FYI that I've marked the Education Working Group proposal as "historical." This is for three reasons: 1) Nobody from the working group has been editing it (and most never did), and there has been little to no response to comments on the talk page; 2) it's purpose was always unclear, and has only become more so; 3) it seems that the working group doesn't even exist any more, now that a subset of its members are calling themselves the "Education Board."

I'm not sure what venue there should be for community discussion of the Education Board's activity, which seems to continue from what one can gather. The lack of transparency and/or accountability is quite astounding. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:33, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I see there have been a couple comments about this at the proposal talk page. I'm thankful to get some great communication on this noticeboard sometimes, but it would be reassuring if more of those involved with the iniative communicated and helped out with things that pop up here. It is kind of odd thinking that there are supposedly lots of people who want to help assignments but then you don't see any edits anywhere or responses here. Of course, lots of great things can be done off-wiki, but more robust discussion about and participation in the issues this noticeboard identifies is desired, to me. I also find it odd that there is repeated talk about "having a place to communicate" when this noticeboard already exists.

Where is the official statement of guiding principles, I wonder? Misplaced Pages:Education Board/Wiki Education Foundation Members currently says "Anyone can become a member of the program. There will be a simple online process for signing up, with minimal requirements, such as agreeing with the guiding principles, which the Board will develop." That hasn't stopped 36 people (me being #36) from putting our names down as Members/Interested Members though! What did I sign up for? =) Biosthmors (talk) 00:03, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I hate to tell you, but you signed up for HumancentiPad. :-) --Tryptofish (talk) 00:04, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

What?! I'm very disheartened. I would have much rather signed up for a featured production. Biosthmors (talk) 00:29, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Bio, the guiding principles are in the proposal, albeit in draft form . If the final principles aren't to your liking, your $0.00 (USD) membership fee will be returned (minus shipping and applicable state taxes). Like Mike below, I'm available for any questions on the new group. in terms of centipad/pede placement, I recommend signing up for the front position. Avoid the middle if possible.The Interior (Talk) 01:47, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to try to be a bit more responsive on-wiki, but I am really busy in real life, so please feel free to poke me at my talk page or via email if I seem to be ignoring a discussion. I don't have a whole lot to add to the note Biosthmors linked to just yet -- we are still working on the tedious administrivia of starting up a 501(c)(3). If there are any specific questions, please post them here and I promise to respond as quickly as I have time for. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:10, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Guiding precepts

Thanks for citing those The Interior! To me, the following bullet point strikes me as problematic.

The organization will strive to sustain the successes of the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program at educational institutions in the United States and Canada. Members will recruit to expand the program and provide all volunteers, instructors, and editors with necessary resources. The organization and its members will strive to encourage greater use and understanding of Misplaced Pages at educational institutions.

I think the words successes, expand, and greater use unfortunately all precede the word understand. The wording suggests that the group is confident that they have a good system and are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to "scale up". Shouldn't there be a mention of avoiding the problems, such as those identified in the RFC? I don't think the confident language is justified. In my opinion, this is a time when basic things should be re-evaluated to make there is a firm foundation, instead of concerning one's self with growth. I would like to see more of an explicit committment and willingness to improve upon the resources provided to instructors, students, and ambassadors, for example. As I mention here, I think there is room for improvement in the most basic instructions we are currently providing classrooms. So I recommend that this precept be modified to acknowledge the real need to improve, rather than focusing on the potential for expansion. I think we need a committment to quality, as the RfC identified that as a major problem from the community's view. Biosthmors (talk) 02:45, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Online Ambassador applications

There are two open Online Ambassador applications at Misplaced Pages talk:Online Ambassadors that could use some input (for TucsonDavid and Nerdfighter). I think it would make sense to start having those applications posted here (like we've been doing with instructor rights requests), in order to further consolidate the education sprawl and make sure applicants get feedback.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 15:09, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Agree that here is probably a better place for the applications. The OA talk is very low vis. The Interior (Talk) 21:56, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Here is definitely better, I also say. Biosthmors (talk) 18:21, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

New class project

New user Psyc-mmills (talk · contribs) has started producing articles labelled:

"NOTE: This is a stub, and it will be expanded as a university class project until May 10, 2013 under the auspices of the Association for Psychological Science Misplaced Pages Initiative."

I am not sure whether this is the instructor or just the first student out of the starting gate. I and others have given advice on the user talk page, including pointing to WP:SUP, but I don't know what should be done to plug this class into your new system. JohnCD (talk) 21:20, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for posting here. For that matter, has anyone been in correspondence with the Association for Psychological Science or the Society of Neuroscience to help them understand Wikipeda editing? I wonder if there are internal instructions those groups use to tell others how edit Misplaced Pages that do not match how Misplaced Pages tells people how to edit. Biosthmors (talk) 18:27, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I can answer with regard to the Society of Neuroscience. A couple of years ago, the Society leadership actually reached out to Misplaced Pages for exactly that sort of thing, and a panel of editors, including some of us from WP:WikiProject Neuroscience, presented a symposium about editing and how to (and how not to) do it, at the Society's annual meeting. The symposium was attended by a few hundred people, although far fewer followed up by becoming registered editors. The WikiProject project page has a conspicuous link to a sub-page that we created to help new editors from the Society, and there's a user-box that I monitor (through a category), so whenever anyone puts the user-box on their user-page, I reach out to them and offer help getting started. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:38, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

There has been extensive feedback on the instructor's (Psyc-mmills') talk page, but as of yet, they don't seem to be adapting to how to edit Misplaced Pages. Biosthmors (talk) 19:13, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

And please point to WP:Assignments for student editors (also WP:AFSE, WP:A4SE, and WP:Student assignments), instead. Thanks! Biosthmors (talk) 19:15, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Harvard SOC 25 editting

After nominating Rational and Natural Theories of Management‎ for deletion for being an essay, I decided to dig into the edit history and started to suspect sockpuppetry, as different users would insert large chunks of text into the vaguely defined. More searches led me to Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/Macy's Management Practicses and Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/Procter & Gamble Management Practices, and I started to get the 'Management' theme. Other articles of interest included IDEO and Inequality in the workplace. Through the works cited and a stray IP address, I started to connect the edits to Harvard University. Finally, I discovered this edit with the summary "Lenovo Management Practices for SOC 25 Assignment 2". Sociology 25: Sociology of Organizations is an introductory course taught by Frank Dobbin last Fall, although it doesn't look like he's teaching the course this semester. FallingGravity (talk) 09:45, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for posting here. For starters, I see Rational and Natural Theories of Management has a red link to the AfD discussion. Biosthmors (talk) 18:24, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

The link is red, but the page is real. FallingGravity (talk) 18:30, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Indeed it is. Odd. Biosthmors (talk) 18:36, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Those links are often red at first, but work. If you clear your cache, it will turn blue. JohnCD (talk) 23:26, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Diffs

Why are there no diffs when editors edit course pages? Can we add this to the software? Ed  01:51, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

See #Why are Education Program pages not normal Misplaced Pages pages above.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 01:57, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Peer review assignments?

Why not encourage assignments where students open peer reviews on important topics? They could begin the peer review by saying,

I am opening this peer review for ], and my classmates will be commenting here. How well I address peer review comments, and how much I improve the article will be judged to help determine my grade. I would like to try to reach X-Class by the end of the review, thanks.

This way, I think we'd have a clear platform to encourage particpation, collaboration, and quality improvements where they are desired, instead of encouraging assignments that create unnecessary articles or dump large quantitites of poor-quality and unneccessary prose on obscure topics. Biosthmors (talk) 03:31, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

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