This is a boilerplate wiki-syllabi for any course which is going to ask students to do something on Wikipedia. It is divided into several sections. First, 'Introduction for students' which introduces them to Wikipedia. Second, 'Assignment', outlines instruction specific to a working paper assignment (to be written by a group of students as a major assignment). Third, 'Stages and deadlines', describes the stages and deadlines as applicable for a short, 1.5-month term (if you are teaching during a regular term, just spread the deadlines around...). Fourth, 'Important tips' contains various tips for the students. Fifth, 'Grading' explains my grading policy, elements of which you may find useful (in particular, the checklist for article quality). The last sections contain the list of students and articles they are working.
This is a revised, LONGER version of my old boilerplate syllabus. This boilerplate is designed for courses where students work in groups and have several weeks to improve an article to a good article status. If you just want your students to do a few smaller edits, you may still find the information in its 'Exercises' section of use, but otherwise, I consider it obsolete.
All text in <bold comments like this> are examples to be replaced by whatever you want when you copy this boilerplate. Feel free to replace anything else, change anything else, and do whatever you want with this boilerplate. In particular, note that this syllabus has details on deadlines and grading that may not be compatible with your course.
You can easily create a course page by replacing the YOUR_PROJECT_TITLE one of the boxes below (but leave the code in front of it unchanged!).
This will create a new page at Wikipedia:School and university projects/your course name or User:your username/your course name (if you followed the instructions, automatically replacing the generic text with, well, your course name and username, when applicable). Whether you want to create your course page in the WP:SUP space or your userspace is totally up to your preference.
The created page will be empty, fill it in with this template by copying and pasting it there. To do so, click 'edit this page' and copy this boilerplate (from introduction to category) to your project page prior to using it in a specific page. When you are done, save the page. This assumes some basic wiki-editing competency without which you should really not be here... but don't worry, it is a skill easy to gain - just spend few minutes at Wikipedia:Tutorial and come back here.
Either way, once you are done, go to Wikipedia:School and university projects and follow the instructions there to add your course to the official listing (while not obligatory per se, it is good form and you may find that interested editors will volunteer to help you). If you would like to use this syllabus but find the instructions too confusing, ask for help at Wikipedia talk:School and university projects.
This page has information on the online writing assignment taught on Wikipedia by <instructor> for the <course, university, timeframe>.
The goal of this assignment is for several groups of students to choose an underdeveloped or missing article on Wikipedia, related to <course subject>, and improve it to Good Article status during the duration of the course (<duration>).
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, is an encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. It has many millions (!) of editors (Wikipedians), many of whom are students like you. The vast majority of them are volunteers who find editing this site to be an enjoyable experience, even a hobby. Therefore I hope you will enjoy this exercise and the course! After all, there are not many exercises that tell you to do something that over a million people think is 'fun'. :)
Wikipedia:Tutorial is the best place to start your adventure with this wiki. Please familiarize yourself with instructions for students and if you have any questions, check the Wikipedia:FAQ/Editing or Help:Contents and if you cannot find what you are looking for, ask the friendly people at Wikipedia:Help desk - or just <contact me - replace Piotrus with instructor username here>.
Before making any major edits, it is recommended that you create an account (video tutorial). You definitely need to have an account before attempting to do any wiki-related coursework (otherwise we will be unable to confirm if you have completed the exercise). After you create an account, if you know your group already, add your name to the relevant section of this page.
Remember that Wikipedia is not a project limited only to our university. We are guests here and we should all behave accordingly. Please make sure you read Wikipedia:Wikiquette. Please try to think what impression you want other Wikipedians to have of our university — and of yourselves.
You should expect that the course lecturer, other students, your friends, and even (or especially) other Wikipedia editors (not affiliated with our course) will leave you various messages on your talk pages. When working on the exercises below, you should log in to Wikipedia and check your messages as often as you check your email (I strongly recommend you read 'as often' as 'at least daily'). Whenever you have a new message and are logged to Wikipedia, you will see a large orange message, 'You have new messages', on every Wikipedia page you access. To make this message disappear, you should click on it and read the message. Note that it is customary to leave new messages at the bottom of the talk/discussion pages, and to reply to somebody's messages on their talk pages. If you want to leave somebody a message, make sure you are editing their talk page, not their user page. Remember to sign your talk and discussion messages (you may want to watch this tutorial on using talk pages).
Some other useful tips: whenever you are done with an edit and want to save a page, fill out the edit summary box and view a preview of the page after your edit to make sure it looks as you actually want it to look. Only then click the "Save Page" button. You may find the page history tool and watchlist tools to be very useful when you want to check what changes by other editors have been made to the article(s) you are working on.
Please direct any questions to <my talk page - replace Piotrus with instructor username here>. You are welcome to send emails, or drop by to see me during our office hours, and ask about Wikipedia how-to; but please try to find the answer first on the Help:Contents.
<This assumes your students will be working in groups to start or improve a Wikipedia article. In addition, this assignment involves student making smaller edits from early on in the course, and interacting on Wikipedia talk page(s) through the course.> Now that you are familiar with the Wikipedia environment, it is time to jump into your assignment.
Project overview:
456154654Your assignment is to choose an underdeveloped <your course area>-related subject to research and write about on Wikipedia. You will perform a literature search on that insect, and work with an assigned group to create a new article or expand an existing one, following any and all Wikipedia standards first and foremost. During the active project phase, you will monitor and respond to feedback on your article, and assist other groups by reading and commenting on their work.
Project details:
This assignment is worth x points.
During lecture, you were assigned to a group and given a group number. This is your Wikipedia assignment group, and it is composed of the people you work with for the duration of the semester. You were given time during lecture to meet with your group and discuss options and schedules. You and your group will choose a <your course area>-related article and create or expand it. Once you have chosen your article, you will write up a one page proposal, outlining important information about it, what points you will cover in your article, and a short list of resources. You then need to make an appointment to meet with me in my office and discuss your proposal as a group. The deadlines for this assignment are listed below.
Once you have gotten my approval, work together to create an interesting, in depth article about your chosen subject. Make sure you familiarize yourself with encyclopedia-type writing before you begin. Writing for Wikipedia is very different from writing an essay, although not that far from writing a descriptive scientific paper, and you need to fit in with the proper format. Please read the following guidelines to get a handle on how you should write your article BEFORE you start writing:
Wikipedia maintains a high standard of writing, and has taken great pains to improve these standards. You need to follow their directions to the letter, since deviating from these standards will invite article deletion.
Regarding the length of the article, quality of sources used, and such, see the articles your colleagues in the past have written during those courses: here, here or here.<you may want to keep those as examples or replace with your own past courses or others you prefer>
Feel free to include photos, but remember that not all pictures on the web are free for the taking. Familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's Copyright Policy to ensure you are not doing anything wrong (copyright violation, in the real, world, means what plagiarism in academia). Remember that any violation will be caught and dealt with by the plethora of editors on the site (and you do not want your group article to suddenly sprout a copyvio template like [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Food_power&oldid=327364463 this 2009 group did...).<again, this is an example you may want to change if you have something better you are more familiar with>
Your article must include at least one academic book or journal source per group member. However, keep in mind that this is a minimum requirement. You should also include a list of external links giving the reader more information on your subject, and link to your page from other Wikipedia pages, so your page is not an orphan. To answer that question in your head: yes, you can go on someone else's article and link to your own. That's the beauty of Wiki!
You are welcome to use Wikipedia:Peer Review and related tools (see tips section below) and seek creative comments on your article. In other words, if you can get other Wikipedia editors to help you, I am totally fine with that.
Once you begin writing your article, you are required to respond to any comments on your paper and act accordingly (make proper changes, defend your choices, etc.). These comments will give you substantial feedback on your work, and allow you to make your final product better. (Besides, I'm going to spend the semester reading your work and commenting on it--if you listen to my feedback, you'll end up with a much better grade. It's like I'm pre-grading it for you! Who's the greatest? Yep, me.)
Finally, you will read and evaluate/comment on your classmates' articles. Please make your comments constructive and useful. You will not get credit for such comments as "good article!" or "I liked it!" Suggest something that can be realistically improved, compare their article to yours and see if your group has learned any tricks that can help them. Also refrain from any abusive or inappropriate language. Remember, you are the face of our University for the semester--make us proud.
At the end of the semester, you will turn into me the following items in a print-out version:
<replace all dates with dates for your course, I am leaving the dates below to give you an idea of a time ranges I used for a course in which students had slightly over a month to work on this assignment. Also, keep in mind that this list of deadlines is very specific with regards to particular sub-assignments, and contains some grading elements>
Note: total amount of extra credit you can get from the activities listed above is 16 (16%). Extra credit is added, unweighted, to your final course score.
Wikipedia:FAQ/Editing will give you all the information you need to edit pages and start your own. Read it! Help:Contents and Wikipedia:Tutorial are very useful, too.
I suggest doing some practice edits on various pages, just to get a feel for how things work. You can start by adding material to your user page, but try to edit real articles, too. If you add some constructive content to sociology-related articles, you may be eligible for extra credit.
If you are drawing a blank as to what you should edit for practice, there are many places you may want to check if you want to improve your Wikipedia-editing skills by editing Wikipedia. Feel free to check the following pages:
Whenever you edit, make sure that you are signed in (if in the top right corner of the screen you see "log in" button, you are not signed in!). If you are not signed in, course instructor (Piotr Konieczny) <replace with your name> will not be able to verify that you were the person who made the edit and give you points for it.
When creating a new account, think about the nickname you want to use here. Consider:
Whenever editing a talk page, add four tildes ~~~~ to the end of all comments you make on talk pages. This will let people know who is talking. You can also just press the signature button (you may want to watch this tutorial on using talk pages).
You can chose to create an entirely new article related to <globalization replace with your course theme>, if the topic you'd like to write about is missing. You can also expand an existing Wikipedia article related to <globalization replace with your course theme>, if there is ample room for expansion (rule of thumb: if the article has only a few sentences, it is a good choice for expansion, if it has a few long sections, probably not). Most articles assessed as a "stub" qualify for this assignment. There are hundreds of <globalization replace with your course theme> related articles to chose from: see here <in the preceding link, replace globalization with a keyword applicable to your course>.
If you are drawing blank on what article you could create or expand, here's an example of an article that should be created or expanded: <archaic globalization, core-periphery, deglobalization, developing country, economic globalization, European miracle, exceptionalism, history of globalization, Karimi merchants, most favoured nation, New Woman, Pax Britannica, Pax Hispanica, Pax Islamica, Pax Romana, postnationalism, social cycle theory, Staples thesis, Tabula Rogeriana, Third World, transnationalism, waves of globalization replace with articles applicable for your course, the current list is for my globalization course>. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
As soon as possible, your group should agree on a topic and get in touch (by email) with the course instructor (Piotr Konieczny) <replace with your name> so he can verify it is a good topic. You may want to select one or more subjects and list them in the order of preference, in case your first choice is rejected, to save time.
We are not doing any original research. You will not be collecting data, analyzing it, or writing about your experiences. We will not be witting an essay with personal opinions or judgments. Instead, we will be writing an encyclopedic article, summarizing an existing, verifiable state of knowledge from a sociology <you will want to replace this with a keyword related to your course> related area. See Wikipedia in brief for a short list of what an encyclopedic article we will be writing here is.
The simplest way to understand the style you are supposed to follow is to examine articles that have passed GA or FA. You can see Wikipedia Good Articles from the section "Social science and society" here <you will want to replace this with a section related to your course>. Good sociology <you will want to replace this and the list that follows with a keyword related to your course> related ones include Social class in the United States, Anti-nuclear movement in Australia, African American culture, On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Other good examples include Featured articles from the section "Culture and society", for example: Society of the Song Dynasty, Max Weber, Fairy tale.
The technical details are explained in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, but I find just looking at already-written articles much more helpful then studying the collection of the rules.
If you want to learn how to write nicely, check this guide:
At the top of this page you will find a "how to" for nomination. There is also a dedicated guide for nominating good articles. If you can nominate it sooner than the deadline, the better for you - every day gives you more time to read comments by the reviewers and address them. Remember: you may get max score (25%) even if you don't address all the comments of the reviewer in time (particularly if he posts them very late); but addressing them and passing through the GA process guarantees you the max score (25%) for this assignment. The assignment does not with the nomination, you will likely have to fix various issues pointed out by the reviewer. If the reviewer posts useful comments, you should do your best to address them; of course this mean you may disagree with him if you think you know better (reviewers are not perfect).
Useful links:
Wikipedia is a project with millions of editors, who collaborate on all articles. We don't own the articles we work on. Don't be surprised if you receive comments from editors who are not part of the course, or if they do edit your article. All editors are here to help; don't hesitate to get extra help - Wikipedia has ton of places you can do so.
It is likely that over the course of the project, you will receive messages from editors outside our course, and that they will make edits to your article. Be polite in replying, and don't hesitate to ask them to explain something.
A. Don't work on a draft in Microsoft Word. Work on a draft in the article on Wikipedia. This way your colleagues (and instructor) will be aware of what you are doing the instant you do so, and can comment on it sooner.
B. Don't exchange comments by email. Exchange comments by using article's talk pages, for the same reasons as above (unless you are certain that your discussion have to stay private). If you like to receive email notifications, you can monitor the article's talk pages (and your own userpage talk page) by subscribing to that page RSS feed (see Wikipedia:Syndication).
Remember: gaining experience with wiki software may be more important to your future career than detailed knowledge of <globalization replace with your course theme>. Three years ago, Technorati's chief technologist states that in five years "knowledge of wikis will be a required job skill". Do the math.
Plagiarism is not only against university's and course policies, it is also against Wikipedia policies (see WP:PLAGIARISM). And attributing somebody doesn't mean cut and paste jobs are allowed (WP:COPYVIO). Violations of plagiarism/copyvio policies will result in lower grade and other sanctions (per university's policy). Please note that the course instructor is not the only person checking constantly for plagiarism and copyright violations; the Good Article reviewer will do so as well, and Wikipedia has a specialized group of volunteers specializing in checking new contributions for those very problems (you don't want your work to appear here or here!). In particular, note that extensive quoting is not allowed, and changing just a few words is still a copyvio (it doesn't matter if you attribute the source). Bottom line, you are expected to read, digest information, and summarize it in your own words (but with a source). For more info see: this plagiarism handout, Wikipedia:Copy-paste, Wikipedia:Quotations, Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing, a guide from Purdue University.
You can always ask the course instructor (me) or Wikipedia:Ambassadors for help. You should not hesitate to ask your fellow students from other groups for help, for example if you see they have mastered some editing trick you have yet to learn. Wikipedia volunteers are often active in this chat help channel. We are here to collaborate, not compete. If you can lobby and get help/assistance/advice from other editors to improve your work (for example by using Wikipedia:New contributors' help page, Wikipedia:Requests for feedback, Wikipedia:Peer review, Wikipedia:Help desk or Wikipedia:Reference desk), I am perfectly fine with it. Be bold and show initiative, it usually helps. See also "how to get help" handout. <your policies towards getting extra help may differ...>
This is not the first time I am running this assignment for my students. Based on my past experiences, here are common mistakes that tend to lower your grade:
<You may want to pay special attention to this, as your grading policy may be quite different from mine>
This assignment is worth 50% of the final score. Out of that, you get 25% for finishing things on time, and 25% by getting the GA status. Your 0-50% is then weighted by your activity, assessed both by the instructor and your colleagues.
Getting an article assessed as a good article by the Wikipedia good article reviewer guarantees the group the unweighted 25% score from this assignment. If you have submitted your article for GA assessment on time but your article didn't finished going through the assessment process in time, due to the failure of the external Wikipedia reviewer to react promptly, or if I think the reviewer treated you too harshly and I am happy with your work, you may still get the unweighted 25%. If the article is assessed below the GA class, the unweighted score will be lower (see table below):
Here is a description of quality classes for an article. What we are aiming at is the GA-class (or above, but the GA-class will guarantee you max points). Read carefully what the lower classes (B, C, start, stub) lack and make sure your article is better!
| Article's quality class | Course credit points earned |
|---|---|
| stub class | 1 |
| start class | 6 |
| C-class | 15 |
| B-class | 20 |
| Good Article class | 25 |
| Featured Article class | 50 |
The grade for this assignment is further modified as follows:
What this means is that if a group had members who worked hard throughout the term (logged in regularly, discussed the article development with other group members and other interested Wikipedia editors on article's discussion page, and so on), and members who did very little worked (logged in rarely, did not participate in discussions, and so on), their end grades for this assignment will be different. For example, if the end unweighted grade was 40%, members who did not contribute much to the group project may see their grade be much lower - 30%, 20% or in case they did almost no work, close to 0% (in other words, students who join the group and don't contribute to the group project should not expect to get a good grade from this assignment - remember: I can see how hard you are working).
Example: you get 40% unweighted score. I and your colleagues rate your activity as 4 out of 5, so 80% of 100%. Your score of 40% is multiplied by 80% yielding the final grade of 32%.
To avoid getting your grade weighted down, read the tips above, and in particular, follow those simple steps:
It is therefore NOT recommended that some group members specialize in tasks such as library research or off-wiki writing, which the instructor cannot verify.
Here is a checklist for article quality. If your article follows those guidelines, even if the official Wikipedia reviewer fails to pass it as a Good Article, you may get your unweighted 25%:
With regards to getting the full activity score:
How to fail the assignment:
<this looks scary only because it is not filled in, it is very easy to use - see example> Course instructor: <User:Piotrus (Piotr Konieczny) replace Piotrus with instructor username here>
Max 5 students per group. You DON'T have to give your real name below, but if you don't, do email your instructor (Piotr Konieczny) <replace with your name> with your name and account so I know whose account is whose. I recommend using your first name and initial.
Please add your username and name below by adding your username and first name to [[::User:|]] ([[::User talk:|talk]] · contribs) (name) so that it looks in the edit mode like this ((user|Username)) (Name). Once you do so, it will look much nicer, like this: Piotrus (talk · contribs)
Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
List here the article your group is editing, Once you do so, it will look much nicer, like Education (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Group 1: [[:]] (edit | [[Talk:|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (improved to )
Group 2: [[:]] (edit | [[Talk:|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (improved to )
Group 3: [[:]] (edit | [[Talk:|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (improved to )
Extra credit edits (the students have the opportunity to earn extra credit with sociology-related <you will want to replace this with a keyword related to your course> wikipedia editing).
What to do for extra credit? Edit <sociology of globalization replace with your course theme> related articles and inform the instructor; they will be graded just like the regular assignment. You can start new articles or improve the existing ones.
Some highlights:
Post them at the discussion page of this article and/or email your course instructor!
Wikipedia copyright: by taking this course, you agree that your work on Wikipedia will be contributed to under a free and open license used by that project.
