Wikipedia:School and university projects/Piotrus course intro boilerplate: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:17, 15 January 2011

Revision as of 22:08, 25 March 2011

Line 17:

[[Wikipedia]], The Free Encyclopedia, is an [[encyclopedia]] that can be edited by anyone. It has many millions (!) of editors ([[Wikipedia:Wikipedians|Wikipedians]]), many of whom are students like you. The vast majority of them are volunteers who find editing this site to be an enjoyable experience, even a [[hobby]]. Therefore I hope you will enjoy this exercise and the course! After all, there are not many exercises that tell you to do something that over a million people think is 'fun'. :)

[[Wikipedia:Tutorial]] is the best place to start your adventure with this [[wiki]]. Please familiarize yourself with [[Wikipedia:School and university projects - instructions for students|instructions for students]] and if you have any questions, check the [[Wikipedia:FAQ/Editing]] or [[Help:Contents]] and if you cannot find what you are looking for, ask the friendly people at [[Wikipedia:Help desk]] - or just <[[User_talk:Piotrus|contact me]] - '''replace Piotrus with instructor username here'''>.

Before making any major edits, it is recommended that you [[Special:Userlogin|create an account]]. You '''definitely need to have an account''' before attempting to do any wiki-related coursework (otherwise we will be unable to confirm if you have completed the exercise). After you create an account, if you know your group already, add your name [[#Editors in SOC0438|to the relevant section of this page]].

Line 28:

Please direct any questions to <[[User_talk:Piotrus|my talk page]] - '''replace Piotrus with instructor username here'''>. You are welcome to send emails, or drop by to see me during our office hours, and ask about Wikipedia how-to; but please try to find the answer first on the [[Help:Contents]].

==Assignment==

<'''This assumes your students will be working in groups to start or improve a Wikipedia article. In addition, this assignment involves student making smaller edits from early on in the course, and interacting on Wikipedia talk page(s) through the course.'''>

Now that you are familiar with the Wikipedia environment, it is time to jump into your assignment.

''Project overview:''

Your assignment is to choose an underdeveloped <'''your course area'''>-related subject to research and write about on Wikipedia. You will perform a literature search on that insect, and work with an assigned group to create a new article or expand an existing one, '''following any and all Wikipedia standards first and foremost'''. During the active project phase, you will monitor and respond to feedback on your article, and assist other groups by reading and commenting on their work.

''Project details:''

This assignment is worth x points.

During lecture, you were assigned to a group and given a group number. This is your Wikipedia assignment group, and it is composed of the people you work with for the duration of the semester. You were given time during lecture to meet with your group and discuss options and schedules. You and your group will choose a <'''your course area'''>-related article and create or expand it. Once you have chosen your article, you will write up a one page proposal, outlining important information about it, what points you will cover in your article, and a short list of resources. You then need to make an appointment to meet with me in my office and discuss your proposal as a group. The deadlines for this assignment are listed below.

Once you have gotten my approval, work together to create an interesting, in depth article about your chosen subject. Make sure you familiarize yourself with encyclopedia-type writing before you begin. Writing for Wikipedia is very different from writing an essay, although not that far from writing a descriptive scientific paper, and you need to fit in with the proper format. Please read the following guidelines to get a handle on how you should write your article '''BEFORE''' you start writing:

# [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]], which summarizes what Wikipedia is, and what it is not;

# [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]], which describes Wikipedia's core approach to neutral, unbiased article-writing;

# [[Wikipedia:No original research]], which explains what is, and is not, valid encyclopedic information;

# [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]], which explains what counts as a verifiable source and how a source can be verified;

# [[Wikipedia:Citing sources]], which describes what kinds of sources should be cited and the manner of doing so; and

# [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style]], which offers a style guide.

Wikipedia maintains a high standard of writing, and has taken great pains to improve these standards. You need to follow their directions to the letter, since deviating from these standards will invite article deletion.

Regarding the length of the article, quality of sources used, and such, see the articles your colleagues in the past have written during those courses: [[Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects/User:Piotrus/Summer_2010#Group_projects|here]], [[Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects/User:Piotrus/Summer_2009#Group_projects|here]] or [[Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects/User:Piotrus/Summer_2008#Group_projects|here]].<'''you may want to keep those as examples or replace with your own past courses or others you prefer'''>

Feel free to include photos, but remember that not all pictures on the web are free for the taking. Familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Copyvio|Copyright Policy]] to ensure you are not doing anything wrong (copyright violation, in the real, world, means what [[plagiarism]] in academia). Remember that any violation will be caught and dealt with by the plethora of editors on the site (and you '''do not''' want your group article to suddenly sprout [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Food_power&oldid=327364463 a copyvio template like [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Food_power&oldid=327364463 this 2009 group did]...).<'''again, this is an example you may want to change if you have something better you are more familiar with'''>

Your article must include at least one academic book or journal source per group member. However, keep in mind that this is a minimum requirement. You should also include a list of external links giving the reader more information on your subject, and link to your page from other Wikipedia pages, so your page is not an [[WP:ORPHAN|orphan]]. To answer that question in your head: yes, you can go on someone else's article and link to your own. That's the beauty of Wiki!

You are welcome to use [[Wikipedia:Peer Review]] and related tools (see tips section below) and seek creative comments on your article. In other words, if you can get other Wikipedia editors to help you, I am totally fine with that.

Once you begin writing your article, you are required to respond to any comments on your paper and act accordingly (make proper changes, defend your choices, etc). These comments will give you substantial feedback on your work, and allow you to make your final product better. (Besides, I'm going to spend the semester reading your work and commenting on it--if you listen to my feedback, you'll end up with a much better grade. It's like I'm pre-grading it for you! Who's the greatest? Yep, me.)

Finally, you will read and evaluate/comment on your classmates' articles. Please make your comments constructive and useful. You will not get credit for such comments as "good article!" or "I liked it!" Suggest something that can be realistically improved, compare their article to yours and see if your group has learned any tricks that can help them. Also refrain from any abusive or inappropriate language. Remember, you are the face of our University for the semester--make us proud.

At the end of the semester, you will turn into me the following items in a print-out version:

# A print out of constructive comments you made when reviewing the work of another group, so I can give you the points for reviewing other articles. Please highlight your user name for clarity. Label that page(s) as: Review of other group work.

# A print out of constructive comments you made on your own group article's talk page, and on the talk pages of other editors (if relevant). Label that page(s) as: Communication during our group work. Note that only on-wiki communication is accepted, off-wiki communication like emails and such will not be graded.

# Each member of the groups should fill out the group percentages form to grade the other members of the group. Fill out the form (anonymously) and either place it in the folder, or hand it to me personally. Make sure you have your groups number on the form!

==Stages and deadlines==

<'''replace all dates with dates for your course, I am leaving the dates below to give you an idea of a time ranges I used for a course in which students had slightly over a month to work on this assignment. Also, keep in mind that this list of deadlines is very specific with regards to particular sub-assignments, and contains some grading elements'''>

* On Monday, May 10, we will have a segment introducing this assignment. Students who by that time have created a Wikipedia account and made at least one constructive edit to Wikipedia will receive an extra credit point (1P)

Line 37 ⟶ 80:

* '''Plan'''. But minor edits alone won't get us much closer towards [[WP:GA|Good Article status]]. We need to have a sense of what more needs to be done, and an overall plan for the article. Look at [[Wikipedia:GA#Social_sciences_and_society|models]] and guidelines (e.g. [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style|Manual of Style]] or the [[Wikipedia:Guide for nominating good articles|Guide for nominating good articles]]). What sections are required? What will be the article structure? What information is needed? Who in your group will write what?

*By Monday, May 24, each group should have an article selected. You should inform the instructor of your article selection (you can email the instructor or post a message to his talk page, or talk to him before or after the class). Make sure it is listed next to your group in the [[#Articles edited|Articles edited]] section of our wiki page. '''Finishing this assignment on time is worth 5% of the course grade.'''

*By Wednesday, May 26, you should have a plan (who will read what, who will work on what aspects of the article) in place. You should create and write preliminary "to-do" list on article talk pages and inform the instructor that you have done so. The "to do" list should consist of a list of what points you will cover in your article, explaininghow it will be structured, who will dowork on what sections, and informa theshort instructorlist thatof resources. This list should be about one page in length if you haveneed donea soyardstick. ''Each'' group member should participate in creation of that list, describing their own tasks. If the article does not exist, you should [[WP:STUB|stub (start)]] it (see [[Wikipedia:SUBSTUB#Differences_between_a_stub_and_a_substub|what makes a good stub]]). '''Finishing this assignment on time is worth 5% of the course grade.'''. Groups which create very good to do lists and stubs may receive up to 2 extra points (2P).

* '''Share'''. You will need to divide up the tasks that we've identified in the planning stage. Who is going to do what and when?

* '''Research'''. This is vital. A wikipedia article is worth nothing unless it comprises verified research, appropriately referenced. This will entail going to the library, as well as surfing the internet!

Line 47 ⟶ 90:

==Important tips==

;Read the fine manual <nowiki>:)</nowiki>

[[Wikipedia:FAQ/Editing]] will give you all the information you need to edit pages and start your own. Read it! [[Help:Contents]] and [[Wikipedia:Tutorial]] are very useful, too.

;Practice

I suggest doing some practice edits on various pages, just to get a feel for how things work. You can start by adding material to your user page, but try to edit real articles, too. If you add some constructive content to sociology-related articles, you may be eligible for [[#Individual extra credit edits|extra credit]].

If you are drawing a blank as to what you should edit for practice, there are many places you may want to check if you want to improve your Wikipedia-editing skills by editing Wikipedia. Feel free to check the following pages:

*[[Wikipedia:Cleanup]]

*[[Wikipedia:Pages needing attention]]

*[[Wikipedia:Peer review]]

*[[Wikipedia:Translation into English]]

*[[Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English]]

*[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias]]

;Create an account and sign in every time you edit

Whenever you edit, [[Wikipedia:Why create an account?|make sure that you are signed in]] (if in the top right corner of the screen you see "log in" button, you are not signed in!). If you are not signed in, course instructor (Piotr Konieczny) <'''replace with your name'''> will not be able to verify that you were the person who made the edit and give you points for it.

Line 58 ⟶ 116:

;Selecting an article

You can chose to create an entirely new article related to <globalization '''replace with your course theme'''>, if the topic you'd like to write about is missing. You can also expand an existing Wikipedia article related to <globalization '''replace with your course theme'''>, if there is ample room for expansion (rule of thumb: if the article has only a few sentences, it is a good choice for expansion, if it has a few long sections, probably not). Most articles assessed as a "[[WP:STUB|stub]]" qualify for this assignment. There are hundreds of <globalization '''replace with your course theme'''> related articles to chose from: [http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&basecat=globalization&basedeep=3&mode=ss&size=512&stubop=or&links=4&go=Scan&format=html&userlang=en see here] <'''in the preceedingpreceding link, replace globalization with a keyword applicable to your course'''>.

If you are drawing blank on what article you could create or expand, here's an example of an article that should be created or expanded: <[[archaic globalization]], [[core-periphery]], [[deglobalization]], [[developing country]], [[economic globalization]], [[European miracle]], [[exceptionalism]], [[history of globalization]], [[Karimi merchants]], [[most favoured nation]], [[New Woman]], [[Pax Britannica]], [[Pax Hispanica]], [[Pax Islamica]], [[Pax Romana]], [[postnationalism]], [[social cycle theory]], [[Staples thesis]], [[Tabula Rogeriana]], [[Third World]], [[transnationalism]], [[waves of globalization]] '''replace with articles applicable for your course, the current list is for my globalization course'''>. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Line 86 ⟶ 144:

;Plagiarism and copyvio warning

Plagiarism is not only against university's and course policies, it is also against Wikipedia policies (see [[WP:PLAGIARISM]]). And attributing somebody doesn't mean [[cut and paste]] jobs are allowed ([[WP:COPYVIO]]). Violations of plagiarism/copyvio policies will result in lower grade and other sanctions (per university's policy). Please note that the course instructor is not the only person checking constantly for plagiarism and copyright violations; the Good Article reviewer will do so as well, and Wikipedia has a specialized group of volunteers specializing in checking new contributions for those very problems (you don't want your work to appear [[Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations|here]] or [[Wikipedia:Copyright problems|here]]!). In particular, note that extensive quoting is not allowed, and changing just a few words is still a copyvio (it doesn't matter if you attribute the source). Bottom line, you are expected to read, digest information, and summarize it in your own words (but with a source). For more info see: [[Wikipedia:Copy-paste]], [[Wikipedia:Quotations]], [[Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing]], [http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/619/01/ a guide from Purdue University].

;Getting extra help

You can always ask the course instructor for help. You should not hesitate to ask your fellow students from other groups for help, for example if you see they have mastered some editing trick you have yet to learn. We are here to collaborate, not compete. If you can lobby and get help/assistance/advice from other editors to improve your work (for example by using [[Wikipedia:New contributors' help page]], [[Wikipedia:Peer review]], [[Wikipedia:Help desk]] or [[Wikipedia:Reference desk]]), I am perfectly fine with it. Be bold and show initiative, it usually helps.

<'''your policies towards getting extra help may differ...'''>

;Advice from past assignments

Line 106 ⟶ 165:

<'''You may want to pay special attention to this, as your grading policy may be quite different from mine'''>

This assignment is worth 50% of the final score. Out of that, you get 25% for finishing things on time, and 25% by getting the GA status. Your 0-50% is then weighted by your activity, assessed both by the instructor and your colleagues.

Getting an article assessed as a good article by the Wikipedia good article reviewer guarantees the group the unweighted 25% score from this assignment. If you have [[WP:GAC|submitted your article for GA assessment]] on time but your article didn't finished going through the assessment process in time, due to the failure of the external Wikipedia reviewer to react promptly, or if theI coursethink instructorthe (Piotrreviewer Konieczny)treated <'''replaceyou withtoo yourharshly name'''>and isI am happy with ityour work, you may still get the unweighted 25%. If the article is assessed below the GA class, the unweighted score will be lower (see table below):

[[:Template:Grading scheme|Here is a description]] of quality classes for an article. What we are aiming is is the GA-class (or above, but the GA-class will guarantee you max points). Read carefully what the lower classes (B, C, start, stub) lack and make sure your article is better!

Line 128 ⟶ 189:

! Good Article class

| 25

|-

! Featured Article class

| 50

|}

The grade for this assignment is further modified as follows:

* you can get up to 25% unweighted score points by finishing the five 5% worth stages [[#Stages_and_deadlines|described above]] on time. This can potentially earn the group the full unweighted 50% score for this assignment, HOWEVER

* the 50% will than be weighted based on individual students participation, incorporating the number and quality of that students edits to Wikipedia, and how each other member of that student group valued his or her input and contribution. The weight is calculated as follows: 75% is based on my impression of your work, 25% on the assessments of your colleagues.

What this means is that if a group had members who worked hard throughout the term (logged in regularly, discussed the article development with other group members and other interested Wikipedia editors on article's discussion page, and so on), and members who did very little worked (logged in rarely, did not participate in discussions, and so on), their end grades for this assignment will be different. For example, if the end unweighted grade was 40%, the members who worked hard may see their individual grades raised potentially even to the full mark (50%), but the members who did not contribute much to the group project may see their grade be much lower - 30%, 20% or in case they did almost no work, close to 0% (in other words, students who join the group and don't contribute to the group project should not expect to get a good grade from this assignment - remember: I can see [[Help:User contributions|how hard you are working]]). To avoid getting your grade weighted down, read [[#Important tips|the tips above]], and in particular, follow those simple steps:

Example: you get 40% unweighted score. I and your colleagues rate your activity as 4 out of 5, so 80% of 100%. Your score of 40% is multiplied by 80% yielding the final grade of 32%.

To avoid getting your grade weighted down, read [[#Important tips|the tips above]], and in particular, follow those simple steps:

* log in and make edits to the article regularly, preferably several times a week

* discuss the article with other group members on article's discussion page, where the instructor can see that you are actively engaged in planning and developing the article

It is therefore '''NOT''' recommended that some group members specialize in tasks such as library research or off-wiki writing, which the instructor cannot verify.

Here is a checklist for article quality. If your article follows those guidelines, even if the the official Wikipedia reviewer fails to pass it as a Good Article, you may get your unweighted 25%:

* Paper is on one of the subject that was approved by the instructor

* Paper includes intro summary ([[Wikipedia:Lead|lead]] in the Wikipedia terminology), at least 3 body paragraphs ''per group member'', conclusion, and bibliography

* There are no grammatical/spelling errors throughout the paper (that does include absence of spurious capitalization, like Sociology instead of sociology and so on)

* Introduction summarizes the subject properly and does not include unique information not present in the main body of the article

* Conclusion sums up the paper without ending abruptly

* Paper is structured logically, and there are no weird gaps (Note: "weird gaps" occur for example when you chose to write about a historical trend, but your group "forgets" to research few centuries in the middle; or when you are presenting an overview by country, but decide that few random countries are enough, because you use an arbitrary "two countries per group" member rule instead of thinking which countries are important to cover for the subject discussed)

* Sources used are [[WP:RS|reliable]]

* In-paper citations are present and used correctly according to Wikipedia format see [[Wikipedia:Citing sources]]

* In-paper citations are done in a consistent format, and provide all the necessary information (in brief: author's name, publication title, publisher information, page number if source has pages, URL if source is online, see [[ASA style]] for details)

* Body of the paper explores the chosen subject in adequate detail. (Note: “adequate detail” means I shouldn’t be able to do a quick literature search and find information not included in the paper. I want you to search current and past literature, books, newspapers, websites, etc. and summarize all the information you find into an easy-to-read and understand paper. If you are missing major bits of information, or have included incorrect information without citations to back up your findings, you will lose major points here).

* Paper should conform to Wikipedia writing standards ([[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]], [[Wikipedia:No original research]])

With regards to getting the full activity score:

* Your group members will expect you to be easily reachable to discuss the paper, and come to their meetings

* Your group members will expect you to do "your share" of the work

* I will grade your activity based on two primary factors:

:* Whether you contributed to your paper on a regular basis (every few days) or not

:* Whether you were active on the article's talk page. This means that I see that attempted to address and fix any and all comments/suggestions given by me, your colleagues, the reviewer and the Wikipedia community. If the change was not made, adequate explanation was given (which did not include "this is for an research assignment, so leave us alone)

How to fail the assignment:

* [[plagiarism]], or extensive quotations

* letting others do all the work and hoping you can still get some points

* missing deadlines

* logging in an editing only at the very end of the course, where you discover you are not sure how to edit Wikipedia, and that your contribution does not really fit th earticles your other members were working on

* not participating in the talk page discussions

==Style guides==