Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:16, 26 September 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.

Click here to start a new discussion

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

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Template:Active editnotice

need help in Oklahoma

Here's a request I received today from a prof in Oklahoma--I'm eager to help him as a regional ambassador but he'll need more than that, How can we help him? "From: Kacaliendo <kcaliendo@rose.edu> I am a professor of English at Rose State college in Midwest City, Oklahoma. I teach medieval literature courses and also have a background in digital humanities. I am considering replacing the term paper in my Early English Literature course with a Misplaced Pages project. Students would locate underdeveloped Misplaced Pages pages (with guidance) and update and enhance them. I recently attended a colloquium hosted by the University of Oklahoma History of Science program on this topic. I have seen the syllabus template provided by Misplaced Pages and am excited to apply it to my course. I also coordinate the Honors Program on campus and I see applications for this Misplaced Pages initiative for our Honors students in a number of disciplines. I look forward to consulting with you further on applying the program to my course. Thank you, Kevin Caliendo English Professor Rose State College " Rjensen (talk) 04:15, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

He might find it helpful to read Misplaced Pages:Assignments for student editors. You can point him to this noticeboard to apply for the course instructor designation. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:59, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing this, Richard! Hopefully you just got the email I sent you and Kevin about some possible ways we can help support him. User:AndrewN is actually in Stillwater (I was thinking OKC), so he will be unable to drive that far to help the class, but hopefully we can find some online support or even help Kevin train a campus faculty member. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 17:53, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I sent an email too just in case. I'd love to see an honors program establish a good solid assignment or three. Biosthmors (talk) 15:29, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I didn't hear a reply yet. Does this look promising Rjensen? Any update? Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 09:20, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Speaking of quality outcomes

Wouldn't it be nice if we only gave out course instructor user rights when we could see that the professor was able to complete the assignment they are assigning their students? Just a thought. Biosthmors (talk) 10:10, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

This is not reasonable. A large percentage and often the majority of people who sign up for anything never even begin to do anything with their registration.

It would be useful to know how many professors attempt a class then fail to follow through, but at this time, the technical barriers and time commitment for the program is high and volunteer support is low, so I can understand how it could deter a lot of people. I am happy with the minimal analytics which has already been done, and would like to see an expansion of outreach before an expansion of further collection of data if resources are scarce and both interests would compete for the same funding. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:16, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

A huge benefit of the extension is not only to help professors keep track of student contributions but to give the chance for volunteers and other interested parties to come a long and offer help after reviewing the student edits. Even if you don't grant somebody the user right, they're going to continue their Misplaced Pages assignment in the classroom. I think it's better to know what the classes are doing and have somebody as a point of contact rather than see the concept of using WP in the classroom expand but "under the radar", as some professors put it. The "request a course instructor user right" process seems to me to be one that gives us the opportunity to hopefully assist more classes rather than not know they even exist. And, yes, the process encourages more profs to describe their assignment, which gives us the chance to provide feedback. That's great, but I don't think it's the only way to help a Misplaced Pages assignment that's going to happen anyway. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 18:18, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't volunteers and interested parties have to 1) have the right user right and 2) sign up to follow the course in order to follow it? Biosthmors (talk) 11:21, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

And the only advantage I see in the extension to professors is that they can see the last several edits made under accounts of the class. But to really evaluate students individually, wouldn't one still need to click on the contributions history of individual students? Biosthmors (talk) 11:35, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The fact that Misplaced Pages:School and university projects page was created long before the creation of this noticeboard and the education program answers your question. It is not mandatory for them to inform us or to sign up for instructor user right. OhanaUnited 03:11, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I generally grant the course instructor userright to any instructor who asks for it, even if I disagree with their assignment. I will certainly express my disagremeent with their assignment and offer my advice about how to improve it, but being able to track someone's students is INFINITELY preferable to having an under the radar class where we cannot keep track of the damage their students may be doing. Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:16, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

User:OhanaUnited, sorry to waste your time with a rhetorical question. I was just generally dreaming of an idealized wiki-world. Yes, of course, anyone can edit. Kevin Gorman, I understand your logic. But... can all Misplaced Pages editors actually track classes by clicking the "View Activity" tab from an extension course page that I see here, for example? Best regards. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 09:18, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Biosthmors: yes, they can. I just successfully did so while not logged in to any user account on several different browsers. It's not the best tracking ever and I still often just go off of the student lists provided by course pages but it certainly beats nothing. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:28, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Kevin Gorman, and I just created this dummy account to check as well. I'm glad this is an open feature. Best. Biosthmorstest (talk) 07:42, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Request for Course Instructor rights: Alas i am

Name

Lori Askeland with User:Kenirwin assisting.

Institution

Wittenberg University

Course title and description English 101: Expository Writing. Required First Year composition course.

Assignment plan Students are not required to edit any Misplaced Pages article. They are only required to evaluate an article of their choice, in an area that they feel they have some expertise in. They will use both Misplaced Pages's standards and their own knowledge to evaluate that article.

It is possible that some students will decide to do some editing as part of their final research project, but I will encourage only students who have a genuine engagement with their topic and a serious commitment to the project. There are several other possibilities for their research project, not just Misplaced Pages work.

Number of students

20

Start and end dates

Sept 2013 until Dec 2013. Lori Askeland 17:03, 10 September 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alas i am (talk • contribs)

Hello User:Alas i am! That sounds like a wise and measured approach. Will they be posting their observations on article talk pages? That could help any future editor of the article. Are you familiar with article talk pages and how to get there? I honestly don't recommend you use the course software if you're not going to be doing much editing in article space. Just start a WP:Course page in your user space, such as User:Alas i am/Fall 2013. There, you can list all the students, which article talk pages they will post on, and any articles they edit. Click on the red link there to turn it blue, and you can write there whatever instructions you'd like. How does that sound? Best regards. Biosthmors (talk) 13:10, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Granted! Who's this stupid guy talking above me? If you'd like to use the course page software, please feel free! If you'd like to do a simple list, please feel free! But either way, please pick one. =) I'll send you an email to try and make this process easier User:Alas i am. Best! Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 09:25, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Maybe ambassadors could write about a paragraph after each semester

And publish it on Misplaced Pages, summarizing their goals, what they did, what worked, what didn't, and what they hope to try in the next semester. Or they could say they might not continue to volunteer and why. Or they would like to do something but are trying to figure out how and would like help. There could be subpages that are then transcluded into one page. Does anyone think this voluntary action might help things along? Biosthmors (talk) 10:10, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Not sure. The education program now is different than it was a year ago and will be different a year from now. The information that an ambassador might share might not have lasting relevance. Something ought to be documented but I am not sure what. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:11, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

One of the ideas the initial WEF working group aspired to was to establish a curated library of “best practices” resources widely available to educators, students and Wikipedians. Dumping one experience at a time (good or bad) randomly, without structure, into the bowels of Misplaced Pages almost ensures no one (especially those outside the day-to-day Misplaced Pages community) will ever benefit from them. I still hope the WEF intends to pursue a “curated resources library” strategy to will make all the learnings from using Misplaced Pages in the classroom widely available outside the confines and limitations of the Misplaced Pages wiki. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:23, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Hey Mike Cline! I thought it was M. Christie posting. I was hoping WP:Student assignments would be a one-stop-shop kind of place. I think we should have a suite of nice course pages that we present there. Maybe you have some ideas for how it could improve? Best regards. Biosthmors (talk) please notify me (i.e. {{U}}) when you sign your reply, thx 08:48, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

@Biosthmors – My personal view is that the Misplaced Pages Wiki is a very poor place (functionally, format wise, and stability) to build a curated library of peer reviewed “best practices” as it relates to using Misplaced Pages in the classroom. Although WP:Student assignments is an interesting read, it does not even come close to providing the kind of curated resources that the average university professor could use to plan and execute a Misplaced Pages assignment in their classroom. Plus, it is doubtful the average professor interested in using Misplaced Pages would ever stumble across it on their own. When I was part of the WEF project I wrote this about “curated resources”.

One of the primary functions of the Wiki Education Foundation is to make available digitally curated resources to a wide audience (students, instructors, professors, administrators, librarians, etc.) in institutions of higher education and volunteers from Wikimedia communities in the U.S. and Canada that encourage and support the effective use of English Misplaced Pages in support of classroom learning objectives and information fluency.

Digital curation is the selection, preservation, maintenance, collection and archiving of digital assets. Digital curation establishes, maintains and adds value to repositories of digital data for present and future use. This is often accomplished by archivists, librarians, scientists, historians, and scholars. Enterprises are starting to utilize digital curation to improve the quality of information and data within their operational and strategic processes. Successful digital curation will mitigate digital obsolescence, keeping the information accessible to users indefinitely. (http://en.wikipedia.org/Digital_curation)

Curated resources may include but are not limited to: case studies, general and discipline specific curriculum and lesson plans, Misplaced Pages training, tutorials and best practices, scholarly studies, etc.

Curated resources may be in the form of presentations, PDF and Word documents, videos, images, etc.

Curated resources must be stored and organized in ways that allow easy access and use by all levels of users in the Misplaced Pages and Academic communities.

Another primary function of the Wiki Education Foundation is to provide a collaboration platform where geographically separated staff, program volunteers, Wikipedians and participating academics, librarians and students can connect and collaborative on specific Misplaced Pages in education initiatives, events, classes and scholarly activity.

I doubt seriously that the Misplaced Pages Wiki could ever aspire to make the above types of resources widely available to educators. I hope the new WEF will pursue a more universally accessible, comprehensive and functional off-wiki approach to building and making such a library of best practices available. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:06, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

"I doubt seriously that the Misplaced Pages Wiki could ever aspire to make the above types of resources widely available to educators." Mike, can you explain why you think this? I agree with you that a curated library of the sort you indicate would be a very good idea. But I'm not entirely sure why you think that "functionally, format wise, and stability," Misplaced Pages is not the place for it. I agree that the Misplaced Pages pages on the WEF are a mess, but that mess is only made worse by the decision go to off-wiki and essentially neglect Misplaced Pages. In any case, on-wiki or off what's important is that effort is made to (precisely) curate such a list of resources. I don't see any such effort invested off wiki. On wiki at least the WEF could draw upon the good will and enthusiasm of people who are actually interested and engaged in the project. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:18, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

@Jbmurray, in my view, the structure and norms of the Misplaced Pages Wiki are fine for an online, collaboratively built encyclopedia, but are ill-suited for building and maintaining a curated library of best practices resources (especially if you want systematic peer/crowd sourced review of those resources to identify the best and most widely used) focused on the productive use of Misplaced Pages in achieving classroom learning objectives. Most Wikipedians think the Education Program is all about “Getting Students to Edit Misplaced Pages”. In my view, that’s 180° from what the program is really all about—using Misplaced Pages to help instructors in higher education courses to achieve learning objectives—whatever they might be. Editing Misplaced Pages may be a by-product of achieving learning objectives that indeed improves Misplaced Pages, but it is not the end all-be all of the Education Program. We use Misplaced Pages in freshman writing and University Studies classes at MSU in ways that don’t involve any editing. Yet, there’s no way (at present) to share those lesson plans and learning objectives with the global educator community on the Misplaced Pages Wiki and in turn get the feedback from the educator community on the efficacy of any given lesson plan.

I personally have aspirations as to what a “curated library of best practice resources” might look like, but in no way do I believe I have the perfect solution. On the other hand, I am confident that the Misplaced Pages Wiki is ill-suited, and would be extremely ineffective in making a “curated library of best practices” widely available to educators across the US and Canada.

As a matter of example, I submit that Educause is a style of curated resources and associated collaboration that would suit the WEF well. Misplaced Pages should focus on being the best online encyclopedia it can possibly be. The WEF should focus on finding ways to promote the most effective methods of using Misplaced Pages in classrooms of higher education to achieve learning objectives in undergraduate and graduate classrooms. Should Misplaced Pages benefit from those methods, all the better. --Mike Cline (talk) 02:04, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Mike, thanks for sharing that perspective. I am of the opinion that you could document some great ideas on Misplaced Pages. Could you please share your knowledge at WP:Achieving learning objectives with Misplaced Pages? I think it would be a great place for you to share (it could be a Misplaced Pages essay, if you'd like), then everyone will be able to see your ideas as well. Please share your knowledge and thoughts about things the WEF could focus on there! Best regards. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 07:50, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

In other words, Mike, I think it would be nice if a curated library existed at one point, but why not make a start at getting some of the big helpful ideas down on Misplaced Pages so everyone can see them? I would like to know your ideas, so that I can share them with instructors. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 08:49, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Course page complications

Last night I accidentally created two courses for Education Program:Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, when I only intended to do one. And should the software not be used in Safari? Things like "Graduate" and "Undergraduate" were popping up as choices for things such as "Term". I thought the performance was so poor, that I'm considering not even recommending its use. =( To me, it defeats the point of a wiki (or teaching people how to edit Misplaced Pages) because it is so clunky and unlike Misplaced Pages. I don't want the first thing I show professors to be something that has nothing to do with how Misplaced Pages is edited... (And doesn't work well!) it's hard enough teaching "user space", "user talk space", "article space", "article talk space", "Misplaced Pages space", vs. "Misplaced Pages talk space", etc. One also can't see in user contributions when the course page is created, only its sub talk pages? (As demonstrated with contributions 2, 3 and 4 (me) with Special:Contributions/Elisabeth_Prügl.) And the software also asks students their gender (male and female are the only choices, aside from saying I'd rather not say), which I found rather creepy. At least it provided for a good laugh, given that it's a gender course, as an explicit WMF affirmation of gender binarism. Intersexuality or pansexuality anyone? Can we ditch that are you male or female thing? Biosthmors (talk) 12:49, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

The wrong options popping up in the pulldowns is not specific to Safari; I think it's a bug in the javascript for those pulldowns. (If anyone good with javascript wants to take a look, I suspect the fix is relatively simple; the pulldown entries for the last call to the pulldown script are basically overwriting the others.) Creation and edits to course pages show up as log entries instead of conventional contribs (for example, Special:Log/Elisabeth_Prügl). Fixing that is definitely something we want to do.

As to gender, MediaWiki uses it (although only in a few cases in English, but much more in some languages) so that it can display messages with preferred pronouns and such. (This is a setting in Special:Preferences, which the education program extension gives students the opportunity to set during the enrollment process.) I'm not sure what discussions have happened in the past about making MediaWiki more accommodating for users who don't identify as male or female, but I'll ask around. The purpose in prompting students to set that preference is that it gives us a more complete picture of the gender breakdown of students for research purposes; it's not crucial, but it is useful, so I'm interested to see other perspectives (from students, educators, and other editors) about whether it's objectionable.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:30, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Sage Ross (WMF), right now there are two course pages listed under Education Program:Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. Sorry I haven't gotten around to filing bugs yet. Maybe you could file this one? It seems that there are two courses listed for the institution, but they have the same title. I'd like to delete one, but I have no way of knowing if by deleting one I'll delete the other. Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 07:40, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Biosthmors, thanks. We thought this was fixed, but clearly it is not so I've reopened the relevant bug.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:47, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: Mattvest

Mattvest (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Misplaced Pages Ambassador?

   To support faculty and students at Davidson College.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   North Carolina, Davidson College.

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   Librarian

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   I have created one wikipedia page.

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Misplaced Pages Ambassador?

   N/A

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Mattvest (talk) 18:29, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

• Mattvest, I am a regional ambassador, so I can get you started! We interview people on Skype. I'll either email you or write a note for you on your talk page, unless someone beats me to this process. Best regards. Biosthmors (talk) 11:50, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
• I just emailed Matt with a Davidson College adddress I found online to see if he was still interested. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 06:56, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Should we change the list of who gets pinged?

It seems like some of the RAs are inactive, such as one who didn't respond to a potential CA for weeks. Biosthmors (talk) 08:56, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

We're not inactive. School has just started for many of us, so we are busy working on other things first before we respond to on-Wiki requests. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 19:56, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Every listed RA is active? Biosthmors (talk) 20:01, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Just because we don't answer, doesn't mean that we don't see it. We all have real lives outside of Misplaced Pages as well, so we're not all going to respond when we see notifications. If you want to, then by all means do it, but that does not mean that there are inactive RA's out there. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:06, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually not, I just got an email confirmation that Dan left the program in July (so FYI, User:Czar). Biosthmors (talk) 16:41, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Okay, but that does not mean that everyone is inactive. We also watch the pages of other RA's, but I was not watching that page, so I did not know that there was a request that was inactive for that long. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 07:09, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

See? I'm not always wrong. ;-) (I jest.) I've never intended to suggest everyone was inactive. I know that would be false. Thanks for your reply Kevin. Biosthmors (talk) 08:32, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

So we at least need to remove Dan. I wonder if there are any others... Biosthmors (talk) 08:32, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Let's have Jami make that call, as that is not our job to decide who no longer is going to be on that page. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 06:04, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

? I'm confused. Are you cautioning against any Misplaced Pages volunteer from removing an inactive RA from the list? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 07:35, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Shrnirish (talk)

Name

Sharon Irish

Institution

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Course title and description

Dialogues on Feminism and Technology is a graduate seminar and is part of FemTechNet's Distributed Open Collaborative Course: we are covering eleven themes and students are required to engage with Misplaced Pages in some way, whether reviewing articles, working on stubs, or participating in a discussion. The students will specify what they intend to do by October 7, 2013. We are working with Adrianne Wadewitz and https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Feminism/Students

Assignment plan

The key goal is to have students experience basic interaction with Misplaced Pages community by identifying a small task. We will know more on October 7.

Number of students

18

Start and end dates

August 26 to December 16, 2013

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Shrnirish (talk) 23:15, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.

Hi Sharon - I went ahead and granted you the course instructor userright which should allow you to set up your course page. Please let me know if you need help with anything at any point this semester. Thanks, Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:50, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Where are the default course pages that are automatically uploaded into the extension?

Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) when u sign ur reply, thx 10:13, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I've tried to document all the pages that are relevant to the extension at Misplaced Pages:Course pages. The default course pages are part of the {{course page wizard}}; see Template:Course_page_wizard#Components. In particular, the default timeline is here: Template:Course page 2/Timeline/preload.

The default content loaded by the extension itself is just the course page wizard itself, from the this page: Mediawiki:Course description.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:57, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Sage. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) when u sign ur reply, thx 14:04, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: NewmanComm (talk)

Name

<Dr. Suzanne V. L. Berg>

Institution

<Newman University>

Course title and description

<Group Communication!-COMM 1033 will provide a practical study of communication principles and interactions which occur in small group and interview settings. Focus will be on theory, analysis, application and group communication skill development. The use of Misplaced Pages is a way to build group/organizational concepts into the course.>

Assignment plan

<The students will develop the pages associated with Newman University and the Adorers of the Blood of Christ.>

Number of students

<Four>

Start and end dates

<August 26-December 6, 2013>

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --NewmanComm (talk) 16:08, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.

This sounds good. I just don't typically grant the course instructor right unless I have some sort of postive interaction with the instructor. Has anyone spoken with Suzanne? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 22:10, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Vaparedes (talk)

Name

Veronica Paredes and @AnneMBalsamo: Anne Balsamo

Institution

The New School

Course title and description

LCST 3705: Dialogues on Feminism and Technology & NMDS 5292: Practicum in Experimental Networked Learning Design -- These two courses are part of the FemTechNet 2013 DOCC (Distributed Open Collaborative Course) effort. The first is an advanced undergraduate course in the Eugene Lang College, The New School for Liberal Arts. There are 18 students registered in this course. Course topics address a range of issues and themes drawn from the history of the feminist engagement with science and technology and from contemporary feminist work in technology and media.

The other course (NMDS 5292) is a small graduate seminar composed of only four students, based in the School of Media Studies at The New School for Public Engagement. Unlike the undergraduate class, the four graduate students enrolled in this class will explore issues of networked infrastructures for learning, learner-centered pedagogies, collaborative knowledge creation, and transformational practices of design and media making. They will take active roles in shaping their own research agendas in FemTechNet's research and projects.

A key assignment for the undergraduate course is engagement with Misplaced Pages. Throughout the first half of the semester, students will become familiar with the policies, protocols and community of Misplaced Pages. In this assignment, they will ultimately contribute to, or begin, articles related to the themes of feminism, science and technology.

In coordination with the FemTechNet community, we will be working with Adrianne Wadewitz @Wadewitz: and the WikiProject Feminism.

Assignment plan

The midterm project requires that all students contribute to Misplaced Pages -- though we are hoping a number of students will continue their work throughout the semester, carrying into their final projects. The midterm assignment will require students thoroughly document their process. In the following weeks they will begin choosing topics, creating reference lists and writing short summaries for these topics. We are using assignment and workshop suggestions from The Sample Syllabus guide and the Instructor Basics brochure to reach these milestones. This week we have covered Misplaced Pages's key policies in class and have assigned the online training for students. We are hoping to have all students' user accounts listed by the end of the week, once we have permission to set up the course page.

Number of students

22

Start and end dates

The date range for the class began August 26, 2013 and ends December 11, 2013.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Vaparedes (talk) 03:47, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.

Hi Vaparedes: I went ahead and granted both you and Anne the course instructor userright. This will allow you to set up a course page. Please let me know if you need help with anything at any point this semester. Thanks, Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:48, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

My apologies

My apologies to everyone (in particular Kevin Gorman, Kevin Rutherford, and OhanaUnited) if I've struck too negative a tone (and irritated you) at times on this noticeboard. I just want things to improve so sometimes that involves me making observations that are critical in the hopes we can create something better. I was reminded recently that this is largely a volunteer endeavor, so that helped me put things in perspective. Thanks for all your contributions. Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:24, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for staying with the project. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:40, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Ayaita (talk)

Name

Ltholnes (Instructor) and Ayaita (Course coordinator)

Institution

Technological University of Panama

Course title and description

Course title: Design and analysis of computer networks. The course is given to undergraduate Systems Engineering students. The instructor will be working with an experienced editor who will help with the assignment plan and student training.

Assignment plan

Students will write, improve and/or translate (from English to Spanish) existing articles related to computer networks.

Number of students

26

Start and end dates

The assignment will run from September 23rd to November 15th, 2013

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Ayaita (talk) 21:17, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.

Request for course instructor right: AJuhasz1 (talk)

Name

Alex Juhasz

Institution

Pitzer College

Course title and description

The name of our course is Feminist Dialogues on Technology. In this course, we’ll be exploring the ways that gender and technology have defined and redefined each other socially and culturally. This class is part of a larger project (see http://fembotcollective.org/femtechnet/), so students will participate in ongoing collaborations in feminism, technology, video, art and craft. Students are given the opportunity to edit Misplaced Pages pages that are relevant to the course, and of interest to them. They will contribute in the following ways: content creation, content editing or language correction. 15 advanced undergraduates will be taking this course in the fall semester. We will be working with experienced editor, Adrianne Wadewitz.

Assignment plan

Our class will be editing Misplaced Pages, hoping add feminist scholarship to already existing content on Misplaced Pages, as well as create and expand articles on women who played and are playing important roles in history and current events. By adding articles and information about women and feminist scholarship, we are making certain women and their contributions to culture are remembered and acknowledged in the digital landscape. By becoming contributors to Misplaced Pages, we are helping change the demographics of Misplaced Pages’s editor-base in order to create a more equitable, inviting space.

Number of students

15

Start and end dates

September-December 2013 — Preceding unsigned comment added by AJuhasz1 (talk • contribs) 19:49, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• Hi Alex, I went ahead and granted you the necessary userright to complete your course page. Please feel free to reach out to me at any point during the semester that you or your students need help with anything. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:04, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application: Cymru.lass

cymru.lass (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Misplaced Pages Ambassador?

   I am (and always have been) very passionate about Misplaced Pages, and I share that passion whenever I can. I'd love the opportunity to work face-to-face with people to help get them acquainted with the way things work around here.

2. In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.

   I've been editing Misplaced Pages from this account for just under three and a half years; before that, I edited as an IP from 2006/2007 up until I created my account. I've contributed to many pages in many different ways—template editing, copy editing, translation, WikiGnoming, vandalism reversion, new pages patrolling, and more.

3. Please indicate a few articles to which you have made significant content contributions. (e.g. DYK, GA, FA, major revisions/expansions/copyedits).

   As a WikiGnome-type editor, my edits tend to be spread out over a large number of articles. My areas of interest are widespread, ranging from technical maintenance to vandalism reversion to new page patrol to translation to copyediting and beyond. I translated Mount Abantos from es:Monte Abantos), and I've done a bunch of template work such as creating {{Welcome unref blp}} and making the template {{ping}} be able to handle parameters formatted as "User:Example" and/or "Example", as opposed to just "Example". Copyedits include: (these were a while back, and my grasp of English and Misplaced Pages style guidelines has continued to improve since then).

4. What do you see as the most important ways we could welcome newcomers or help new users become active contributors?

   Assuming good faith is (of course) key to welcoming/helping new users, but I think the importance of understanding what it's like to be a newbie is largely overlooked by many Wikipedians who come into contact with new users. When they first start contributing to Misplaced Pages, most people aren't familiar at all with the way Wikipeda works, beyond the "anyone can edit" tagline. The problem with saying things like "Please see WP:COPYRIGHT. Also, you should read WP:GNG" to a new user who has just created an article about a non-notable person that violates copyright is that a) the user probably doesn't know what the Misplaced Pages namespace is, b) it doesn't explain what WP:COPYRIGHT and WP:GNG are and why they have anything to do with what's going on, and c) curt statements like that can makes the user feel like they did something wrong/make them feel stupid (yes, the user violated Misplaced Pages policy, but in all likelihood, that edit was in good faith). I'm not saying all this from a high horse or anything; I only realized all of that relatively recently. I love the reminders at WP:BITE, especially "Behavior that appears malicious to experienced Wikipedians is more likely caused by ignorance of our expectations and rules" and Observe for a while and, if necessary, ask what the newcomer is trying to achieve before concluding that their efforts are substandard or that they are simply "wrong".

   A recent example of my being patient with newbies instead of just immediately tossing some policy shortcuts at them and nominating their article for deletion could be found at User talk:Speakforthose318.

5. Have you had major conflicts with other editors? Blocks or bans? Involvement in arbitration? Feel free to offer context, if necessary.

   I haven't had any major conflicts with other editors, nor have I ever been blocked, banned, involved in arbitration or discussed at WP:AN/I. I've had minor conflicts in the past (as anybody who edits Misplaced Pages long enough will), but I've kept my cool well enough to not take anything personally and to know when I'm getting irritated and it's time to give the discussion a little space.

6. How often do you edit Misplaced Pages and check in on ongoing discussions? Will you be available regularly for at least two hours per week, in your role as a mentor?

   If you check my contribution history, you'll see that in 2012 and early- to mid-2013, I wasn't the most regular of contributors, initially due to settling in to college, and then to injuries sustained in a car crash. Now that I'm used to my college workload and the injuries preventing me from contributing regularly are healed, I'm back to checking Misplaced Pages at least daily. I usually check in briefly at least 3 times a day, and I tend to have at least one daily period where I'm editing/hanging around for over an hour.

7. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?

   The first step to making sure my students don't violate copyright laws is to make sure they understand copyright laws and how they apply to Misplaced Pages. Pointing them to Misplaced Pages:Copyrights#Using copyrighted work from others is a must, as is explaining what the CC-BY-SA and GDFL licenses actually mean and pointing them to Misplaced Pages:Plagiarism. Also important is making sure they're aware of the fact that anything they find on the internet or in a book is copyrighted, unless it says otherwise or the material falls under public domain. A significant amount of people are under the impression that if material doesn't have the word "copyrighted" on it, then it's not copyrighted. On top of that, it's important to periodically check in with the students to make sure they are citing their sources (and doing it properly), since not citing one's sources is a form of plagiarism. I could also direct them to Help:External links and references, a mini-tutorial I created about 3 years ago, as well as Help:Referencing for beginners.

8. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?

   The first thing would be to confirm that what's going on is indeed copyright violation. Next, I would remove any copyrighted material and get in touch with the student to notify him/her and explain why the material had to be removed (with relevant policy links). I might also consider messaging or emailing the teacher/professor and asking him/her to give the students a gentle reminder about copyright violations the next time the class met. I would then monitor the student's future contribs for more copyvios. If it continued to be a problem and I could tell the student was receiving my messages and either persistently not understanding or choosing to ignore what I was saying, I would again contact the teacher/prof, this time explicitly naming the student and explaining the problem. I would also consider bring it to the attention of administrators via WP:ANI.

9. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.

   Broadly speaking, copyright violation is the use of material in a way that you don't have the right to do. Some of the things falling under the definition of copyright infringement include directly copying images amounts of text from a copyrighted source (whether attributed or not; this does not include short, properly attributed quotes or the use of images under fair use) and copying material from a copylefted source that violates the copyleft license in some way (examples include not attributing text copied from a CC-BY source or not distributing text from a CC-BY-SA source under the same license). Also it should be noted that per Misplaced Pages policy, information copied from a public domain source still needs to be attributed in order to avoid plagiarism (while not technically illegal, it is unethical not to do so).

10. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Misplaced Pages Ambassador?

    I'm also interested in being a Campus Ambassador (that's what I originally applied for, before User:Biosthmors pointed out that I can apply for both) in the event that any classroom projects start up in the Buffalo, NY area (not limiting myself to one school/college as there are a ton of colleges in this area easily accessible to me by public transportation). I think that about covers it.

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

1. Endorse. An experienced user, and someone that I trust very much – fully qualified. By the way, if you haven't yet read WP:ASSIGN, I'll put in a shameless plug for it. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:10, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

   I have in fact read WP:ASSIGN :) Thank you for your trust! — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 23:42, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

2. Endorse. This user has the skills to be a Misplaced Pages Ambassador on behalf of the Misplaced Pages community. =) Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 08:04, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Education program

I just tried to edit this page to add a note for Aussies, Brits, Kiwis, etc., but the page is so fancified, I don't know how to direct people to relevant community resources. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 08:25, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Training slides

For Misplaced Pages:Training/For students/How a ragtag band created Misplaced Pages video and Misplaced Pages:Training/For students/Why Wikipedians are Weird video, and all other training slides like this in the other training modules, could we simply replace them with one slide called "Why do people edit Misplaced Pages" and then show them this video, which I find impressive? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:16, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

@Biosthmors: Given that the "background" module is supplemental, and seen only by people who choose to go beyond the basic training series, I suggest adding it rather than replacing it. I do like that video, but I think it serves a different purpose to the other two. It's a feel-good inspirational video along the lines of the earlier 2010 video series that were initially used in these trainings. One consistent piece of feedback that came in was that those videos were unnecessary (although I like them a lot too), so I took them out. But it's a fine addition to the optional module. Feel free to add it!--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:39, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Sage, maybe you could intimidate some intern at the WMF do it (or recruit one)? ;-) Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 18:57, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Request for Course Instructor Right

Instructor Names: Billy Pashaie pangurban22 (talk · contribs), and Randa Wahbe bitjennin32 (talk · contribs)

Institution: Cypress College

Course title and description: English 60/100--This is a freshman composition course.

Assignment plan: Groups of 2 students will identify an issue covered in this course, will make sure that the issue is not already covered in Misplaced Pages, and will collaborate to create a Misplaced Pages entry for their issue.

Number of students: 22 students total; 11 groups of 2 students will collaborate to make contributions

Start and end dates: 8/26/13 to 12/15/13 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pangurban22 (talk • contribs) 16:15, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello there! Are you familiar with the general notability guideline? There are peculiar requirements for what should exist as a Misplaced Pages article sometimes. =) Also, see the reasons for merging articles. It's sometimes a challenge to identify which articles need creating. How do you anticipate to make this part of the course? Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:00, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Biosthmors. Thank you once again! I have watched some videos for instruction on Misplaced Pages, but haven't read the pages you've suggested. I will do so, and I appreciate your suggestions. pangurban22 —Preceding undated comment added 17:38, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome. FYI to the others, I've emailed the link to the training to Professor Pashaie and when it's taken I'll grant the user right. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 22:00, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Course page issues

Would there be any reason why Education Program:Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies/Gender and International Affairs (Fall 2013) wouldn't automatically reflect what is in User:Ituta/Course page, which is WP:Transcluded in? I don't see a purge function on the Education Program: page. I am getting reports of students not being able to see the updates to User:Ituta/Course page on Education Program:Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies/Gender and International Affairs (Fall 2013). Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:53, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

You can purge it with one of the "return to your main course page and continue" links that are included in the default course wizard subpages, such as this one. Outdated transclusions can stick around for a long time on course pages, which is why I had to add those purge links. If updating that Ituta's userspace course page is going to happen regularly, I suggest pasting in the same noincluded purge link on that page so that it's convenient to purge after each update.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:16, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Sage. I would think most edits have been made, but I tried adding that just in case. I replaced the page name. That link now takes me to Education Program:Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies though, so I don't know if it helps. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:27, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

You're right, that link code assumes you're on a subpage. I changed it.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:32, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

User:Ituta, this is now fixed. =) Just click the link at the bottom of User:Ituta/Course page and refresh the course page if it ever happens again. Thanks Sage! Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:35, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you so much!Ituta (talk) 14:10, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Plagiarism research project

I've still got more work to do to get all the data published, document the research process, and communicate about it more broadly (since it is relevant beyond the education program), but I wanted to post about the results of the plagiarism research project my team has been working on. See Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Education Program/Research/Plagiarism.

The short version is that I think it's safe to say that education program assignments from the United States Education Program and Canada Education Program are not making the English Misplaced Pages's plagiarism problem worse than it already is. We found plagiarism or close paraphrasing in almost 5% of the new articles created by student editors, compared with about 13% of articles created by statistically similar newcomers who were not participating in education program classes, and 10% or more for articles created by new users who got started 2006, 2009, or 2012. We also have data for student editors who expanded existing articles (over 8%), and articles written or expanded by admins (over 3%) and high-edit-count non-admins (over 3%). Many caveats apply, so check out the details. Discussion and questions are welcome, preferably on the research page.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:44, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Ping to User:Colin, User:Jmh649, User:SandyGeorgia, and User:SlimVirgin, b/c I think you have all been interested in this issue at least at one point. Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 18:51, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

thanks for the ping, wish I had more time to follow, am surprised that overall plagiarism was found to be that low, both among students and among others ... I can convince myself that students plagiarize no worse than others, but have a hard time believing those low numbers, based on my experience. I'm wondering if plagiarism might be worse in medical topics? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:53, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: Check out the details of how the numbers were generated, and the caveats section. There are very few false positives (as we manually checked every hit and threw out the cases of reverse plagiarism or ones where direction of copying couldn't be definitively established), but several modes of plagiarism that would not have been picked up. We tried to construct the datasets to provide a good basis for comparison, but the absolute rates almost certainly undercount the prevalence of plagiarism. By how much, it's hard to say without guessing wildly.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:59, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Sage ... no time ... but it sounds like even if there are issues in the absolute rate, the conclusion that students plagiarize no more than other editors does not surprise me, and is likely sound. The issue is, their profs aren't checking, and the students are not typically long-term contributors, they don't stick around, they don't learn, so we gain little by having to check and revert their work, where hopefully other editors do learn from their mistakes and stick around to make useful contribs without overtaxing other editors. In other words, I don't think the question is whether students plagiarize more or less, rather a question of the overall benefit vs the time we spend doing profs' work. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:07, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

The whole idea of loads of incoming student edits makes me nervous unless they've received some stellar guidance and they have a good grading rubric. We had an admin recently on this board who had a bad outcome and vowed to never run an assignment again, on behalf of the community's interest. An admin. That just shows you how easily assignments can turn into failures for Misplaced Pages. This stuff has to be managed properly. And quality expectations should be high, especially because maybe 98 or 99% leave after it's over. And from what I've seen, the topics that are selected are obscure (another reason it's hard to expect anyone will look over their work). Anyhow, that's why I've been emphasizing raised expectations in terms of quality output, in line with the RfC's result. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 19:26, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks SandyGeorgia. I agree that this research doesn't directly address the issue of the overall costs and benefits of education program. It is intended to give us a better basis for understanding the particular problem of plagiarism (and even then, of course, it only gives a partial view).--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:01, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Biosthmors, thanks for the ping. Sage, can you say more about how the plagiarism was found? The report says: "These datasets were sent to TaskUs to be checked for plagiarism via the Yahoo!-powered Grammarly tool," but doesn't give details.

The reason I ask is that the student essays in which I found plagiarism usually indicated that an effort had been made to avoid it being detected (or that the student genuinely believed that changing a few words was enough). New editors who plagiarize don't do that as a rule; they will often just copy-paste, so it's much easier to spot. The students usually change a few words or phrases in a sentence, so finding it is more time-consuming. Also, new editors tend to use online sources that aren't behind paywalls; the students were plagiarizing from academic papers that were sometimes behind paywalls, or books that weren't always online. My understanding of Grammarly is that it doesn't check that kind of source.

I'd therefore be interested to know how the team ironed out these differences so that they didn't affect the end result. SlimVirgin 19:32, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: I'm not sure what all is in Grammarly's plagiarism checking database. As I understand it, it is powered by Yahoo!, but I believe it includes more than a simple web search. Many sources behind paywalls, as well as webpages that are not indexed for conventional web search because of robot.txt settings, were returned as hits. I've not been able to find details about which paywalled databases are included or excluded for Grammarly, but I will see if I can learn more.

Many of the hits returned as potential plagiarism were of short phrases, which in many cases turned out to be close paraphrasing of the type you describe, where bits and pieces are changed but the basic form of the source text remains. As noted in the caveats section, if there are no significant phrase matches at all because of thorough changing of individual words, then that sort of plagiarism would slip through. My qualitative impression after looking through many hundreds of matches for both student editors and non-student editors is that this sort of plagiarism is not significantly more common in the student datasets, but we have not specifically tried to investigate that.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:01, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm sceptical about the low figures for all groups. And I second SlimVirgin's point about student sources being particularly hard to check. In my experience this problem was near universal rather than rare, and greatly under detected due to source choice. The analysis doesn't seem to compare article and source differences between the groups. I suspect if that was done, then the analysis comparing the groups might be questioned. Further, there is the cost of the plagiarism to the community. How many willing eyes does a pop culture topic get for it to be either fixed up or problem eliminated through churn, vs academic subject so obscure we didn't even have an article on it. We have a huge systemic bias problem in the demographics of our editor base. The editors we have more than enough of are unaffected by student edits because they don't touch those subjects. The editors we have barely any of are completely swamped at times by student edits to the point where they leave. The students aren't replacing those editors. So the demographics will get worse. Ultimately, this obsession with proving that students are no worse than newbies is imo deeply unhelpful and completely misguided. Colin° 21:29, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I, too, would like to know more about possible false negatives. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:19, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

@Colin and Tryptofish: With the match cohort, we attempted to control for the type of sources indirectly, by matching based on the categories of articles. That is, we took the set of articles contributed by student editors, and tried to find non-student editors with similar time since registration and edit count, who contributed articles in related categories. (You can see the technical details of how the match dataset was constructed in Evan Rosen's github scripts; I only have a qualitative understanding of what we were trying to accomplish with the matching.) This approach will not have eliminated the potential for systematic differences in source choice, but it's an issue we had in mind during the design of the match cohort.

For me at least, the central aim of this project was not to prove that student editors are no worse than newbies. (I am now convinced that, with respect to plagiarism, this is true. But I was not at all sure at the outset of the project.) Plagiarism is a significant problem, for the education program in particular and Misplaced Pages in general, and it is one that we have very little systematic data about. These is not the be-all, end-all of the issue, nor is it intended to shut down discussion of plagiarism problems related to the education program. It's an attempt to understand the problem better.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:01, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Peeking in briefly, Sage, per Colin, SV, Trypto and myself, I suggest it is premature to be "convinced that, with respect to plagiarism, this is true" ... I don't believe you have the study controls to be so sure of that, per the caveats, shortcomings and explanations given. Like Colin, in my experience, the student copyvio rate is near 100%, and it is extremely time-consuming to investigate and remove, and it is almost always on obscure topics that aren't worth the effort. The same can be said for other new editors I encounter, but they learn and stick around, so the effort is worth it to convert a new plagiarizer to a good, long-standing editor. In my experience, that has never ever been the case with a student, and they are a net drain on my time ... and my motivation. This has been one of the factors that discouraged me from contributing as much here as I used to (the others being the ongoing disgusting issues at DYK, the debacles at FAC leading to an extreme decline in quality there, and the socking endorsed by the arbs, which contributed to the decline of FA). I think a useful analysis would be a by-hand (without the problems of articles behind paywall, etc) examination focused on medical topics (perhaps students working in other areas are better grounded in plagiarism through their other coursework ... in medical topics, the students I encounter seem to have zero understanding of plagiarism ... perhaps this is covered better in the liberal arts). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:31, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I thank Sage for the thoughtful reply, and I want to point out that I, personally, don't specifically care about whether student editors plagiarize more or less than others. What I care about is the fact that we have a lot of student editors, and we need to do everything practical to make them a net positive for Misplaced Pages, and consequently, to whatever extent they do plagiarize, we need to understand it accurately, and I want to make sure that we don't unintentionally underestimate the problems that we need to work together to fix.

Based on my own experiences teaching at the college level for a very long time, I know that students can show a great deal of resourcefulness in plagiarism and cheating generally when they think that everyone else is doing it and when they think they can get away with it. Because of the way that students become student editors, they have motivations to cut corners that other editors, who come here entirely by choice, simply do not. At Misplaced Pages, I keep seeing instructors who are obviously not doing the hard work that it takes to discourage their students from plagiarizing. And Sandy et al. are quite correct about the ways that students might use sources that we would miss in the usual ways of detecting text matches.

Here's an example. Please take a look at the bottom half of Talk:Flynn-Aird syndrome, where I helped out with a class project a few years ago. The page covers a rather specialized subject. I, and other editors who know the source material, are pretty sure that most if not all of the primary source material is the original work by Flynn and Aird themselves. The student edits added a significant amount of very specific material that, very simply, cannot be found in any of the sources that they cited. They must have gotten it somewhere, after all. It reads like the kind of material one would find in medical school textbooks or similar tertiary sources, although these are not cited. At the time, I looked every way I could think of for matching source material, and came up empty. It would, for sure, come up "clean" in any text-matching software that I know of. And yet, there is the content, and the students could not have gotten it from the sources that they cited, and they must have gotten it somewhere, where they deliberately chose not to cite the source. I'm guessing an old textbook, and they probably copied it directly, and therefore chose not to cite it. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:16, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Categories for course pages

Category:Misplaced Pages United States Education Program courses, 2011 Q3 is an example of a sub-category of course pages. But is there a parent category? And are Education Program: course pages being put into a category? I'd like to see all of these course pages all categorized together under one parent category, whether they're in User space, Education Program: space, or Misplaced Pages: space. Is that already done? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 18:48, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Extension

Per a conversation at WP:VPPR, Misplaced Pages:EducationProgram extension now exists. Feel free to improve/discuss. Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:25, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

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