Wikipedia

User:S L Seston/BI302 Virology

< User:S L Seston
Course name
BI302 Virology
Institution
Alverno College
Instructor
Sherry Seston
Subject
Virology
Course dates
2015-02-23 – 2015-05-18
Approximate number of student editors
25


This will be a semester-long assignment, with milestones along the way to keep everyone on track and allow for feedback at important points in your work.

Each student will be responsible for one Wikipedia article, and will act as a peer reviewer for at least two other students' articles. The goal of the assignment is to make a substantive contribution to a Wikipedia article on a topic of Virology, with a target quality level between B-class and Good article (the closer to Good article the better, of course). Each group will choose a Stub-class article or create a new article and improve it as much as possible within the timeframe of this assignment.

Students should, as much as possible, help each other out with questions about how to do things on Wikipedia. You should strive to communicate the Wikipedia way -- on user talk pages. If you still have a question or a problem, don't hesitate to contact me through Wikipedia or my Alverno email address.


Milestone summary

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Unit(s) Due date Summary Where should it go?
1 03/04 Topic ideas Moodle discussion thread
2 03/18 Beginning bibliography Upload to Moodle or hard copy
3 04/01 Set up user account Your user page and sandbox
4 04/08 Communicate The Teahouse and your talk page
5 04/15 Practice citations Your sandbox page
Initial article assessments Your user talk page
6 04/15 Article selection discussion Your user talk page
Article selection rationale Your user page
7 04/15 Initial work on article Your main sandbox
8-9 05/04 Contributions to the article Your article page
Progress report Your user page
10 05/06 Peer review Review article's talk page
11-12 05/11 Article improvements Your article page
Interactions Various talk pages, per user:contribs
13 05/13 Peer review Review article's talk page
Interactions Various talk pages, per user:contribs
14 05/18 Interactions Various talk pages, per user:contribs
Individual contributions to your article Your article, per user:contribs
Self assessment Your user page
Overall article improvements Your article page

Timeline

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Unit 1: Wikipedia essentials

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Assignment (due 2015-03-04)
  • Read Alex Bateman's article on why scientists should contribute to Wikipedia.
  • Read the Editing Wikipedia brochure
  • Read the Choosing an article handout
  • Explore topics related to your topic area to get a feel for how Wikipedia is organized. What areas seem to be missing? As you explore, make a mental note of articles that seem like good candidates for improvement.
  • Be prepared to share your topic ideas in class. Have some resources gathered, as well as the names of some Wikipedia stubs or articles you may want to work on.

Unit 2: Literature Search and Bibliography

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Assignment (due 2015-03-18)
  • Read the Evaluating Wikipedia brochure
  • Find at least 15 reliable and scholarly sources on your topic. Prepare the list in a personal database with complete information for each source.
  • Continue building your bibliography and reading your sources throughout March. Continue refining your idea for your Wikipedia article during this time.
Milestones
  • Everybody submits a list of 15 reliable and scholarly sources.

Unit 3: Setting up an account, learning the basics of editing Wikipedia

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Assignment (due 2015-04-01)
  • Create an account. Pick any username you would like, but DON’T USE YOUR FIRST OR LAST NAME
  • Enroll in the course on Wikipedia as follows:
    1. At the top of this page, click on the "Enroll" button.
    2. Enter the "enrollment token" you received in class and follow any other instructions.
    3. Make sure that your user name appears in the list of students at the bottom of the course page. If it does not, check the top of the page to make sure that there is no statement indicating that you are looking at a cached copy of the page. If you are, click the link to update.
    • If you have any problems or questions enrolling, ask on the course talk page, or, email me.
  • After enrolling, complete the online training for students. During this training, you will make edits in a sandbox and learn the basic rules of Wikipedia. Be sure to go through the interactive tutorials along the way.
  • Edit your own user page, adding a brief introduction of yourself (but remember what you write is public)
Milestones
  • Everybody has created an account, enrolled in the course, and completed training. I should be able to find your user page through the student list on the course page, and be able to read an introduction about you.

Unit 4: Learn to communicate on Wikipedia

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Assignment (due 2015-04-08)
  • Re-watch the watchlist video from this page of the student orientation
  • Adjust your watchlist preferences:
    • Click "My preferences" → "Watchlist".
    • Make sure that all three of these are checked (towards the bottom of the page):
      • ✓ Add pages and file I edit to my watchlist
      • ✓ Add pages and files I move to my watchlist (Some people have noticed that this option doesn't show up for them. If it doesn't show up for you, don't worry about it, because you probably won't be moving page or files for a while.)
      • ✓ Add pages I create and files I upload to my watchlist
  • Change your email preferences so that you get emails whenever a page on your watchlist changes. To do this:
    • Click "My preferences" → "User profile"
    • Near the bottom, make sure these are all checked:
      • ✓ Enable e-mail from other users
      • ✓ Send me copies of e-mails I send to other users
      • ✓ E-mail me when a page or file on my watchlist is changed
      • ✓ E-mail me when my user talk page is changed
  • Read the Using Talk Pages handout
  • Make certain that you understand the following:
    • The difference between an article page, a user page, and a talk page.
    • How to use indentation when discussing things on talk pages.
    • When and how to sign your edits with four tildes (~~~~) (on talk pages only).
  • Then, practice communicating on Wikipedia. At a minimum:
    • Say Hello to one other student via her talk page. Make sure you use the "New section" link, as described in the video, and to sign your entry with four tildes (~~~~).
    • Add this student’s user page and sandbox page to your watchlist.
    • Have (two) short conversations, using proper indentation for replies.
    • Verify that you are getting emails when any page (or the corresponding talk page) changes.

You are responsible for keeping up with changes to various pages on Wikipedia throughout this course. Please make sure that you are getting proper notifications.

Unit 5: Policies and guidelines: Assessing articles

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Assignment (due 2015-04-15)
  • Review the slides under "The Core" from the student orientation. Pay particular attention to copyright and plagiarism section. This is very important.
  • Read Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia, Logan DW, Sandal M, Gardner PP, Manske M, Bateman A (2010). PLoS Comput Biol 6(9): e1000941.
  • Read this handout, Avoiding Plagiarism. Note, in particular, that plagiarism includes such subtle forms as using short phrases without attribution, or beginning from a copied text and simply rewording it while leaving the structure and meaning intact (i.e., close paraphrasing).
  • Watch this video, Article improvement.
  • Watch this video, Article assessment. This gives more information about what makes an article good.
  • In this course, the goal will be to take an article from stub class to a level of quality somewhere between B and GA. On your own user page, start a new section with the title, "Summary of characteristics of target article", and summarize what the characteristics of an article at that quality level would have.
Milestones
  • I should see on your user page a summary of the characteristics of articles at our target quality level.

Unit 6 : Citing Sources

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In pages under the WikiProject MCB, we will be using the Vancouver System (author-number). You should use Diberri's Wikipedia template filling tool (instructions). With this tool, if you have a PubMed ID, you can quickly produce a full citation that you can cut-and-paste into an article. This will not only save you work, but will help to ensure that references are cited in a consistent manner.

  • How to use Diberri's Wikipedia template filling tool, in a nutshell:
    • Fill in the PubMed ID
    • Check the "Add ref tag" box
    • Click "Submit. You should see a box with something like the following: "<ref name="pmid21866248">{{cite journal |author=....}}</ref>".
    • Cut-and-paste that into your article, at the correct point
    • Click "Preview" (on the article edit page) and verify that the citation appears as you want it.


Assignment (due 2015-04-15)
  • Citing sources assignment:
    • select two different articles from your Reference List.
    • On your main sandbox page ("username/sandbox"), write a short paragraph to practice using inline citations.
    • Make sure you do not plagiarize. (See plagiarism materials above).
    • Use named references, and reference at least one of the articles more than one time to practice citing.
Milestones
  • Graded milestone: In your sandbox page, I should be able to find some practice citations in your sandbox.

Unit 7: Finalize your Article Choice

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Assignment (due 2015-04-15)
  • Continue to learn about Wikipedia, such as how to find and use images and figures
  • Continue to assess articles and pick a new topic or an article to edit:
    • Don't limit yourself to your previous topic if you have learned more in your research since then.
    • If you choose an existing article, and then edit the Articles section below to "claim" it. Articles will be claimed on a first-come-first-served basis, so you are encouraged to touch-base with other students who had similar interests.
  • Write a summary explaining the rationale for your choice:
    • The summary should be between 150-300 words or so.
    • Write this summary as a new section on your user page, under the heading "Article selection rationale"
  • Mark the article's talk page with a banner to let other editors know you're working on it. To add the banner, add this code in the top section of the talk page:
{{course assignment | course = User:S L Seston/BI302 Virology | term = Spring 2015 }}
  • Add a link to your selected article to the table at the bottom of this course page.
Milestones
  • You should have decided on an article for which you will be primarily responsible. That article should be in your watchlist and you should have a summary explaining your rationale for your choice.

Unit 8: Get started on your article

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Assignment (due 2015-04-27)
  • In order to prepare to the next unit, read or skim Manual of Style - Lead section for more information about style and structure of Wikipedia articles
  • Do some initial work on your article:
    • You should already have done extensive research and reading on your topic. Identify key points that should be in the Wikipedia article for this topic. Discuss on your talk page if you like.
    • Move the list of references created in Unit 2 to the working sandbox page.
    • Find more high-quality references, and add them to your list.
    • Search for any suitably-licensed images that you can add. If you find some, create a list for these on the working sandbox page, and add them to it.
    • Prepare a preliminary outline for the article, and write that in a new section of the working sandbox page.
    • Add your ideas for how you would like to improve the article to the talk page of the article..
Milestones
  • I should be able to find your initial work on your article in your sandbox pages.

Unit 9: First contribution

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In this unit, you will shift from working in the sandbox to working on the actual live article in Wikipedia. You can continue to use the sandbox as a "scratch-pad" area, for example, for the rough outline, for lists of figures or references that you might want to use, and other miscellaneous notes. But when writing actual content, please use the article page. There is no need to draft the content first in the sandbox, and then move it to the article -- it is better to do your drafting and editing right in the article page itself. This may seem scary, but it is the way Wikipedia works!

Likewise, when discussing improvements to the article, do so on the article talk page, and not on any page that only you and your classmates will see. (Questions or discussion that are specific to the course itself, and not related to the article, of course, should not go on the article talk page.)


Assignment (due 2015-05-04)
  • In general, and ongoing:
    • Make sure you respond in a timely manner to any queries or feedback you get on the article's talk page, from other Wikipedia editors.
  • Make a substantial contribution to your article. General guidelines:
    • Try to add approximately 8 to 10 paragraphs of new, sourced content. As an approximate minimum, each paragraph should be based on one new source. As a theoretical (and very tedious and unrecommended maximum) each sentence could be based upon two separate sources (but this raises questions on text-source integrity if you don't place inline citations carefully). Please be sure that the content is appropriate for an encyclopedia, that is concise, with no fluff.
    • If necessary, do not hesitate to remove existing content that is of poor quality, unsourced, or that does not fit into your plans for the article. Remember to be bold. Removing poorly written or poorly sourced content often does result in a net improvement to an article. If in doubt, you could first suggest the deletion on the talk page first, wait a couple of days for feedback, and then delete it if no one objects.
    • You may also add or update one or more infoboxes, figures, graphs, and/or tables. Creation of an original figure will count for more than adding an existing figure.
    • Be sure to include headings. Wikipedia prefers relatively short chunks of text, 200 to 600 words. Headings are key to helping readers navigate through the page. If your headings are formatted correctly, they should automatically appear in the Table of Contents at the beginning of the entry.
  • Write a very brief progress report on your user page, in a new section titled "Unit 9 progress report". As a guideline, this should be a bulleted list of up to five items, with one or two lines per item, highlighting specific contributions that we otherwise might miss. For example, don't include "Wrote the introduction section", because that kind of contribution will be obvious. Do include things like "Used Inkscape to make the figure 'small nucleic acid lipid particle', and uploaded it to Wikimedia Commons", or "Updated the infobox-disease with several external links." If all of your contributions were prose, then your progress report might consist of only one line, "All of our contributions were prose."
Milestones
  • I should be able to see your contributions on your article page.

Unit 10: First peer-review

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Assignment (due 2015-05-06)
  • We will assign reviewers at random. Each individual will be assigned as a peer-reviewer of two other articles, and those articles should also be in your watchlist. For this unit, you will review the first of those two articles.
  • This is your chance to critically evaluate your classmates' topic and writing. Use your knowledge of Wikipedia and your knowledge of Virology to generate comments about how the article might be improved. Start a new section on the article's talk page with the title "Comments from ..." and add your user name. Feel free to make minor edits (typos) to the article you are reviewing, but if the suggestions are more substantive, make a comment on the talk page about how the article might be improved. Some specific things to consider:
    • Does the lead section follow Style Guidelines?
    • Does the content accurately represent the cited sources?
    • Is the writing clear, comprehensible, and doesn't use too much jargon?
    • Do the contents of each section belong in that section? In other words, is each section coherent, and in concord with the section heading?
    • Are there gaps in the content? (What is missing?)
    • Are there places where there is ambiguity or inaccuracy over which sources are supporting what content?
    • Could the content be structured differently? You could suggest alterations in the order of sentences, paragraphs or sections for organizational purposes.
    • Are there parts of the article that are not clearly explained, and could cause questions to arise in the mind of a reader?
    • Is the content within Wikipedia's guidelines (such as neutral point of view) and does it avoid plagiarism or too-close paraphrasing?
  • Throughout the remainder of the course, continue to interact on the talk page, as appropriate, in relation to your feedback.
  • The comments sections that you add to the articles talk pages will be evaluated to judge the quality, thoroughness, and thoughtfulness of your feedback. Comments that demonstrate that you were reading the sources (and potential sources) for the article and comparing them against the content of the article to generate feedback are highly valued.
Milestones
  • I should be able to find your review on the respective article's talk page.

Units 11-12: Second contribution

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  • In this unit and throughout the rest of the course, I will monitor the quality and responsiveness of your interactions with reviewers of your assigned articles, the main editors of the articles that you have reviewed, and outside editors.


Assignment (due 2015-05-11)
  • Continue to improve your article based on the criteria outlined above, and also based on reviewer's comments.
  • Provide feedback to the reviewers on your article's talk page (don't forget to use proper indenting and to sign your posts). Which suggestions did you take? Which do you disagree with? There is no need to get into lengthy discussions about particular changes -- you are in charge of your own edits. However, if you don't take a reviewer's specific suggestions, it is helpful to explain your reasoning. Just saying THANKS for helpful suggestions indicates that you agreed!
  • You should also use this time to add more content to your article. By the end of this unit, the overall structure of your article should be complete, and most of the content added or written, including prose, figures, infoboxes, and tables. The quality of the writing can be cleaned up later, but most of the actual content should be in the article, in it's proper place, and correctly sourced.
Milestones
  • You will receive feedback on both improvements that you make to your own article, as well as on interactions with others on their articles. both activities are important.

Unit 13: Second peer review

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Assignment (due 2015-05-13)
  • Don't forget to maintain thoughtful, timely communication with the editors of the article that was the subject of your first review, the reviewers of your assigned article, and any other editors.
  • For this review, follow the same guidelines as for the first review, but keep in mind that the editors will not have much time to implement your suggestions, so focus somewhat more on immediate problems rather than major structural issues.
Milestones
  • I should be able to find your review on the respective article's talk page and be able to see that you've been maintaining interactions with others.

Unit 14: Final contribution

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Assignment (due 2015-05-18)
  • Criteria for your final project:
    • Timely and thoughtful ongoing interactions with reviewers of your article.
    • Significant and timely contributions to your own article.
    • Thorough review and meaningful contributions to other students’ articles in the peer review process.
    • Self-assessment of your article in relation to Wikipedia’s article quality guidelines.
  • Reflection and Self-Assessment
Milestones
  • Final project due. In addition to finishing up all the work on your article, you should prepare another very short and to-the-point final progress report on your user page (not your article page), under the heading, "Reflection and Self-Assessment".

Grading

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  15%  
   Early Wikipedia exercises
  10%  
   Participation in Wikipedia discussions in class
  10%  
   Peer reviews and collaboration with classmates
  15%  
   Presentation and reflective essay
  50%  
   Quality of your main Wikipedia contributions
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