User:Kevin Gorman/sandbox

USEP execution details

Selection of participants

Although the US Education program has shown that classes can engage productively with Wikipedia, not all classes that have participated in the program have been able to successfully actually do so. Experience has shown that classes that exhibit the following characteristics are most likely to successfully and non-disruptively integrate in to Wikipedia's community:

An instructor who is actively excited about the idea of the program and is able and willing (both in terms of time committments, and technological understanding) to directly engage on Wikipedia (even if they have not done so before.)
Good instructional design that takes in to account the specific needs of Wikipedia-based assignments (such as starting their on-wiki engagement early in the semester, etc.)
Students who are personally engaged with the subject matter, are in at least their second year of higher education, and are able to commit enough time so as to both understand Wikipedia's social norms and content policies and to create well-cited, well-written content.
In-person support by people who are familiar with Wikipedia (especially the use of Wikipedia in educational settings,) the subject matter covered by the course, and any particular difficulties that contributing to those subject areas on Wikipedia may pose.

Given the contact that we have had with instructors of philosophy so far and the excitement that these ideas have generated, we anticipate that we will be able to be significantly selective in the classes we accept. As per the success metrics below, we will not be accepting more than around eight classes, for a total of no more than around 300 students. Participating instructors will be selected for their goodness of fit with these characteristics, as well as with any other relevant characteristics that will significantly influence the success of their classes projects, such as class size. We will not, under any circumstances, agree to support a class that does not meet the following minimum characteristics:

The instructor is able and willing to directly engage on Wikipedia.
The instructor is willing to have extensive consultation with us (as well as potentially with other interested and capable volunteers) about their instructional design, and is willing to have the Wikipedia assignment constitute a major element of their course.
The instructor is willing to halt their project mid-semester if, in the opinion of the grantees, the class is causing a significant number of problems that cannot be ameliorated through less drastic means.
The students in the course are likely to be capable of producing high quality content, and seem likely (based off of the type of course, etc) to highly engage with the project.

We will prefer classes that are held close enough to Berkeley or New York City so that having one of us physically travel to the classroom will be at most a day trip, so that we minimize our own travel costs while still being able to physically support each class. If a class seems to be an exceptionally good fit for the project in our judgment but is not located near us or other able Wikipedians, we may still accept the class in to the project, as long as the travel costs this would entail are not earth-shattering.