Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 04:34, 26 June 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.

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Template:Active editnotice

Request for course instructor right: Mckteacher (talk)

Name

Guy Boysen

Institution

McKendree University

Course title and description

The course in a section of Honors Introduction to Psychology. Students will primarily be in their first year of college. As part of their community service requirements, students will be writing a Misplaced Pages article that increases accurate coverage of psychology. They will be primarily writing about classic studies in the history of psychology.

Assignment plan

The following is a current draft of their assignment:

The Association for Psychological Science (APS) has initiated an effort to improve the representation of psychology on Misplaced Pages in terms of both its accuracy and comprehensiveness. Intentional, thoughtful, and scholarly contribution to Misplaced Pages represents an opportunity for service because it can increase the quality and amount of scientific information available to the general public. The contributions also offer students the opportunity to refine their communication skills by translating complicated scientific concepts into everyday language.

Students will sign up for one of the 40 studies in the Hock text. They will then review the Misplaced Pages article devoted to that study or a closely related topic and determine the strengths and weaknesses of the article. Then, they will identify topics that could be added to make the Misplaced Pages coverage of their topic more comprehensive. Building off their review, students will actually write a Misplaced Pages article based on their suggestion for an area in need of increased coverage. Articles must be written so that they are comprehensible to the general public. Articles must be written using reliable, scholarly sources. All sources must be documented both in the text and in a reference section. The length of articles will vary. However, if the article does not reach 300 words and 2 sources, a second article should be written.

The written assignment that is turned in will consist of two parts. The first part will include the review of the Misplaced Pages page. Reviews should contain strengths, limitations, and specific suggestions for expansion. The second part will consist of the actual article written for Misplaced Pages.

Number of students

20

Start and end dates

9/2013-12/2013

--Mckteacher (talk) 16:10, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.

• The book referred to, for convenience, is Forty studies that changed psychology: explorations into the history of psychological research by Roger R. Hock. Here are my thoughts. The fact that this is a small class is very good, as is the fact that it is an honors class. However, there are still a number of ways this could go badly wrong, so it would be helpful if you would make a commitment to work closely with a course ambassador who could advise you on ways to avoid pitfalls that have tripped up other instructors. Looie496 (talk) 17:07, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

• I would gladly work with an ambassador and would love to hear advice an lessons learned that are not part of the official educational materials posted on here or on the APS website. Is there something I need to do to make this happen? Mckteacher (talk) 17:25, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I would be happy to talk with you over Skype. Last semester I helped out most closely with a class at Saint Louis University and before that one at Georgia Tech. I'll send you an email. Biosthmors (talk) 11:25, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Status=passed

Is this meant to be 'past'? If this is some regional English use of the word 'passed', could we instead use the word 'historic' or the word 'archived'? It's too close to the sense of 'the students passed the course' Stuartyeates (talk) 10:22, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

The meaning is intended more like "the time period of this course has passed", but I agree that it's a bit confusing. Maybe 'previous'? Anyone else have ideas for the clearest word to label courses that are over?--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 12:41, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Maybe "finished"? --Tryptofish (talk) 13:55, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Maybe the new name (whatever it is) could be linked to the definitions of the stages someplace? Stuartyeates (talk) 09:09, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

How to deal with a class editing an article in a negative manner

Back in May of 2013 we had 3 new users and an IP making negative changes to the article on Rhabdomyolysis. I reverted the changes, protected the page and posted a comment here were the protect was supported. Subsequent to this some feel that my protection of this article was a misuse of admin tools . A number of us attempted to address a class editing Parkinson's disease without protection and it was difficult in May of 2012 (there were five new editors). I ended up protecting that page as well eventually. Wondering what we as a community feel is appropriate when dealing with classes who are making negative changes to an article? Do people feel protection is appropriate and if so can this be done by those who have previously edited the article in question? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 17:50, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I personally feel that when you are acting in the capacity of maintainer of medical articles, and the issue is one of competence, this sort of protection is completely appropriate. What is happening here is that you've gotten sucked into controversies that have nothing to do with education or medicine, and the other parties are looking around for any stick to beat you with. Looie496 (talk) 18:11, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. However if I am to carry out these sorts of actions in the future will need a clear consensus that this is indeed appropriate. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 18:21, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I too feel that relatively long-standing editors of relatively high-profile articles can and should take action to prevent detrimental editing during hotspots of activity. This is what we do, for example, in the cases of politician biographies in the climax of election campaigns; rapidly moving disaster articles; etc; etc. I see no difference here. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:31, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd be happier if we were having this discussion in the absence of an RfArb. I've looked at that request, and I think that it's a good decision that they appear to be declining to accept the case. On the merits of the question asked here, I have ambivalent feelings: on the one hand, I've been very outspoken on this noticeboard about the importance of not leaving unhelpful student edits on-Wiki; on the other hand, I'm also a long-time advocate of administrative caution. So I'm going to break the question down into two sub-questions. As to the sub-question of whether page protection can be desirable when a student project is messing up a page, I say yes, it is. I would also, however, want to see an initial effort to explain the problem to the student editors, accompanied by reverting if appropriate, before resorting to protection. In other words, BRD, at least briefly, before protecting, so as not to BITE. The second sub-question is whether or not it is appropriate for an administrator to protect a page after having made other directly-related edits, such as reverting the edits that the protection is intended to block. I'd say that doing that flirts with being on the wrong side of INVOLVED. And I prefer that administrators err on the side of not projecting big-shot-ness (for much the same reason that I avoid telling other editors in a content dispute that I have a PhD, so respect mah authority). As a non-admin, I have never found RFPP particularly onerous. I see no reason why it would be any more onerous for an admin. You can always post there, just like any other editor, and there will always be other admins who can do the protection for you. So, on that second sub-question, I disagree a bit with Looie and Stuart. If you come across a problem page that you otherwise do not edit, by all means consider protection (after BRD) against bad student edits. If you have edited the page previously, but have not involved yourself in dealing with the student edits, then protection is also fine. But once you've gotten to the point of reverting the student edits, it's better to leave protection to a completely uninvolved admin. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:01, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Rereadig my comments above, it appears I have implied I'm an admin. I'm not. Also my take on my PhD in relation to wikipedia is that my PhD is just another insititution I have to declare a COI with (See User:Stuartyeates). Stuartyeates (talk) 23:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh, not at all. I didn't think any of that at all. I just was trying to draw some distinctions concerning what I consider to be proper administrative practice. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:18, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I’m responding to this as a course instructor with only a vague understanding of admin rights and responsibilities. As an instructor, I feel a strong responsibility to have my students improve articles and not damage them. Even so, I am often too busy during the semester to keep up with their edits and after lurking on this page a bit, I see not all instructors share my sense of responsibility even if they did have the time. That being said, if it were my students, I would request, first, BRD but please don’t BITE. Second, please try to contact me and my course ambassador (my students are required to put a link to the course page on the article talk page and on their user page, so it should be easy to find us). Beyond that, if bad student edits continue in spite of efforts to communicate the problem to the students, their instructor, and ambassador (if there is one), then page protection seems very appropriate. Tryptofish’s comments seem thoughtful and make sense to me, but I am unfamiliar with the page protection process. Biolprof (talk) 04:19, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes following the discussion above and here most seem to feel that it is reasonable if one cares out these protections one could also post for a second opinion. Sort of did that here but will be more clear next time around. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:34, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: PirateV (talk)

Name

Vanessa Bentley

Institution

University of Cincinnati

Course title and description

The course is Philosophy and Women. We are investigating the relationship between women and philosophy from Ancient Greece through today. It is a mixed undergraduate course where most have little to no experience in philosophy. Their Misplaced Pages assignment is to research a woman philosopher and write a Misplaced Pages page for her to increase the visibility of women philosophers. I do not yet have a Misplaced Pages advisor for the course.

Assignment plan

My students will be adding articles by women working in philosophy to increase the visibility of women;s contributions to philosophy. Each student will be tasked with adding one article.

Number of students

18

Start and end dates

June 24-August 10, 2013

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --PirateV (talk) 19:24, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.

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