Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Cottey College/Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality (Spring 2017)

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Course name
Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality
Institution
Cottey College
Instructor
Sarah Quick
Wikipedia Expert
Shalor (Wiki Ed)
Subject
Sociology and WGS
Course dates
2017-03-24 00:00:00 UTC – 2017-05-11 23:59:59 UTC
Approximate number of student editors
8


Welcome to your Wikipedia project's course timeline. This page will guide you through the Wikipedia project for your course. Be sure to check with your instructor to see if there are other pages you should be following as well.

This page breaks down writing a Wikipedia article into a series of steps, or milestones. These steps include online trainings to help you get started on Wikipedia.

Your course has also been assigned a Wikipedia Content Expert. Check your Talk page for notes from them. You can also reach them through the "Get Help" button on this page.

Student Assigned Reviewing
Planetpizza
Anthro177
Chickadee39
Julietokar
Curious facts411
Narumi.nakagawa
Princessluna
Sushirolls

Timeline

Week 1

Course meetings
Friday, 24 March 2017
Everyone creates an account with Wikipedia

Week 2

Course meetings
Monday, 27 March 2017   |   Wednesday, 29 March 2017   |   Friday, 31 March 2017
Post initial ideas in Moodle forum and provide feedback to three others

Week 3

Course meetings
Monday, 3 April 2017   |   Wednesday, 5 April 2017   |   Friday, 7 April 2017
Assignment - Log in to the Wiki Ed course page & take first two trainings

Due Friday, 4/14.

Week 4

Course meetings
Monday, 10 April 2017   |   Wednesday, 12 April 2017   |   Friday, 14 April 2017
Assignment - Evaluate your topic on Wikipedia

Due Friday, 4/21

For this assignment, you will critically investigate and read what is available for the Wikipedia entries related to your topic. Answer the following questions as thoroughly as possible. To start, please complete the "Evaluating Articles and Sources" training (linked below).


Part 1

  • Review page 6 of your Editing Wikipedia guidebook.
  • Find out if any of the Wiki Ed subject-specific handouts are relevant to you. If so, please read and review. 
  • Look up your topic on Wikipedia, identifying any articles that already exist. For any related articles you find, answer the following questions:   

 1.  Does this topic include one primary entry or many entries somewhat related to the topic you would like to explore?  Besides answering this question note all the entries (by title) that you found related to your topic. You may consider even ranking them in some way such as from heavily related, to somewhat related, to peripherally related.  

2.     Does Wikipedia have a disclaimer for any of the entries? Check the "Talk" page to see how the article is rated, and what conversation is going on behind the scenes about how to represent the issue. 


Part 2

  • From that list, identify 1 potential article that you can tackle for the full evaluation assignment, and post a link to the article with space for notes about what you might improve in your sandbox. 
  • If your topic is not covered on Wikipedia, find an example of a similar topic (another biography, another non-profit, another book, another similar event etc) to do for the evaluation assignment. 
  • Please consider the following questions while reading through your article: 

3. How long or how many subsections does it include?

4. How many sources are provided?

5. Are they authoritative, peer reviewed, and legitimate sources?

6. What seems to be missing in the entry(ies)? 

7. What might be skewed, selective, or biased in the entry (ies)? Are there more or less coverages of certain identities versus others than you believe there should be to accurately reflect this topic?

8. What about reading materials from this course—could these supplement the materials presented in the entry in any way? If so, explain how. If not, what about other source materials—websites, scholarly research, blogs, other media? What other sources exist that would give a fuller picture on this topic? Note at least two sources that could supplement the topic as it is covered by Wikipedia.

9. Finally, make an initial judgement on what you think you should do to improve what’s available on this topic in Wikipedia. Would you need to create a new entry?  A new sub-section in an existing entry? Does what’s available also require some revisions due to bias? Overall, you will be adding at least two paragraphs of writing to Wikipedia (not more than four paragraphs); some of this writing may be in the form of editing, but roughly half of the writing should be adding content to what is already available. 


Bonus
If you are working on a topic that might be considered a medical topic (psychology,  medicine, etc), please take the additional "Editing Medical Topics" training below. 

Week 5

Course meetings
Monday, 17 April 2017   |   Wednesday, 19 April 2017   |   Friday, 21 April 2017
In class - Discussion
Thinking about sources and plagiarism
  • Blog posts and press releases are considered poor sources of reliable information. Why?
  • What are some reasons you might not want to use a company's website as the main source of information about that company?
  • What is the difference between a copyright violation and plagiarism?
  • What are some good techniques to avoid close paraphrasing and plagiarism?


Assignment - Annotated bibliography & Final Proposal

Due Friday, 4/28

  • Take the "Sources and Citations" training, linked below. 
  • Pick one of the two articles that you evaluated to work on for the rest of the assignment. On the Students tab, assign your chosen topic to yourself. (If you are creating a new article, assign yourself the topic as you want to title to stand once you've completed the project.)
  • In your sandbox, create a new section titled "Annotated Bibliography" and compile a list of relevant, reliable books, journal articles, or other sources that you can use to support your work as you improve your article. Post that bibliography to the talk page of the article you'll be working on, and in your sandbox. Make sure to check in on the Talk page to see if anyone has advice on your bibliography. 
  • In your sandbox, create a new section titled "Article draft" and write a few sentences about what you plan to contribute to the selected article. This might be a good time to write an outline of the article as it stands now, with an emphasis on which section you are going to improve.  

Creating a new article?

  • Write an outline of that topic in the form of a standard Wikipedia article's "lead section." Write it in your sandbox. 
    •  A "lead" section is not a traditional introduction. It should summarize, very briefly, what the rest of the article will say in detail. The first paragraph should include important, broad facts about the subject. A good example is Ada Lovelace. See Editing Wikipedia page 9 for more ideas. 

Improving an existing article?

  • Identify what's missing from the current form of the article. Think back to the skills you learned while critiquing an article. Make notes for improvement in your sandbox. 
Milestones

Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.

Week 6

Course meetings
Monday, 24 April 2017   |   Wednesday, 26 April 2017   |   Friday, 28 April 2017
Assignment - Begin moving your work to Wikipedia

Due Friday, May 5th

It's time to move your work to Wikipedia proper - the "mainspace." To start, please take the "sandboxes and mainspace" training, linked below.  

Editing an existing article?

  • NEVER copy and paste your draft of an article over the entire article. Instead, edit small sections at a time.
  •  Copy your edits into the article. Make many small edits, saving each time, and leaving an edit summary. Never replace more than one to two sentences without saving! 
  •  Be sure to copy text from your sandbox while the sandbox page is in 'Edit' or 'Edit source' mode. This ensures that the formatting is transferred correctly. 

Creating a new article?

  • Read Editing Wikipedia page 13, and follow those steps to move your article from your Sandbox to Mainspace.
  • You can also review the [[../../../training/students/sandboxes|Sandboxes and Mainspace]] online training.

Once it's live
Do additional research and writing to make further improvements to your article, based on suggestions and your own critique.

  • Read Editing Wikipedia page 12 to see how to create links from your article to others, and from other articles to your own. Try to link to 3–5 articles, and link to your article from 2–3 other articles.
  • Read Editing Wikipedia page 15 to review a final check-list before completing your assignment.
  • Don't forget that you can ask for help from your Content Expert at any time!
Milestones

Everyone should have finished all of the work they'll do on Wikipedia, and be ready for grading.

Week 7

Course meetings
Monday, 1 May 2017   |   Wednesday, 3 May 2017   |   Friday, 5 May 2017
Assignment - Reflective Post [in Moodle]

Due May 8th before our final period (1-2 pm)

Write a reflective post (2 to 3 paragraphs) on your Wikipedia contributions.

Consider the following questions as you reflect on your Wikipedia assignment:

  • Critiquing articles: What did you learn about Wikipedia during the article evaluation? How did you approach critiquing the article you selected for this assignment? How did you decide what to add to your chosen article? 
  • Summarizing your contributions: include a summary of your edits and why you felt they were a valuable addition to the article. How does your article compare to earlier versions? 
  • Feedback: Did you receive feedback from other Wikipedia editors, and if so, how did you respond to and handle that feedback? 
  • Wikipedia generally: What did you learn from contributing to Wikipedia? How does a Wikipedia assignment compare to other assignments you've done in the past? How can Wikipedia be used to improve public understanding of our field/your topic? Why is this important? 


In class - In-class discussion
May 8th during final

We will use 45 minutes of our 2 hour final to discuss your reflections and learning from the Wikipedia project.

Some questions we may consider: 

  • What do you think of Wikipedia's definition of "neutrality"?
  • What are the impacts and limits of Wikipedia as a source of information?
  • On Wikipedia, all material must be attributable to reliable, published sources. What kinds of sources does this exclude? Can you think of any problems that might create?
  • If Wikipedia was written 100 years ago, how might its content (and contributors) be different? What about 100 years from now?
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