Portal talk:Social Sciences

If you want to experiment with a radical new version of Portal:Social Sciences you can work at Portal:Social Sciencesnew.

If you update featured content on this portal, make sure that you update Portal:Social Sciences/Featured.

Hey people
Did you get to hear or see what the vandals did on the main Wikiversity page? If not, check the page history, it was terrible. User:Lawman was the first to witness the effect. The admins should better consult him for the investigation. How dishonorable the act is? I appeal to all noble people who are beyond such barbaric acts to be vigilant throughout Wikiversity. User:Humble Guy

I think we'll survive pr0n spammers so long as there are enough regular visitors to revert mischief. Lucidish 18:59, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Does "communication" belong in the social sciences?
Communication Courses seem more like they'd belong in a Humanities league. Just a thought. jxn 19:56, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

One of the things you should consider doing, if you wish for people to enroll in Wikiversity courses is to make it really, really easy to do. I would like to enroll in the school of economics. I searched for about an hour for a way to enroll, and never did find one.

Put a link right near the top of the Wikiversity home page; >>>ENROLLMENT<<<. I'm not saying there isn't a way somewhere, but I didn't find it. Wilbur Wilson wilsonw@harborlink.com

It seems obvious to me that communications theory belongs in the social sciences, though I would call it a subcategory of Sociology. Though this brings up the whole notion of a categorization scheme for the social sciences, which I'll talk about in a sec. Lucidish 18:58, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

New Departmental scheme
Quite literally the word "anthropology" means the study of humans, so every so-called "Social science" is actually a branch of anthropology. Accordingly, I think that's what the entire faculty should be named.
 * Moreover, the way I see it, disciplines would look like this, if they were arranged by topic:

The Anthropologies
 * School of Psychology
 * School of Sociology 
 * School of Communication
 * School of Media Studies
 * School of Development Science
 * School of Economics
 * School of Political Science
 * Cultural Studies
 * School of History
 * School of Human Ecology
 * School of Geography
 * Archeology 
 * (Indsnry.) College of Social Work (applied Social Science)
 * (Indsnry.) College of Social psychology
 * Linguistics


 * Note that "geography", "Human ecology", "archeology" and "linguistics" have been included.
 * Economics and politics are specialized fields of sociology because they describe the makeup of societies and the activity within them.
 * Sorry, but this doesn't gel with most established Universities... Economics and Politics are separate fields of study distinct from Sociology.--Dnjkirk 07:32, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * "Interdisciplinary" fields I dubbed "colleges".
 * In hard brackets are some of the applications of each field, indicating that some generic introductory material will be included to bridge the gap between theory and practice.
 * Italicized are disciplines that would not have departments of their own.
 * All the research done in Anthropology would be downloaded into the appropriate discipline(s). Lucidish 04:21, 31 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't see any particular reason that we need a hierarchical scheme at all. Why not simply use the categorization functionality of MediaWiki to put schools (and courses) in multiple categories?  -- 164.125.27.221 09:11, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't History be in the Social Sciences?

Furthermore I think the name "Social Sciences" is problematic. I much prefer the name "Social Studies." Fokion 02:30, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * This is what is great about wikis. History can be in which ever school it wants to be, both at the same time. No need for it to fall under just one cat.--Rayc | (Talk) 05:01, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * That's fine, but currently it's not here or in the Humanities. I don't care if it gets put in both places, but clearly it should be created!  Jade Knight 07:23, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Social Studies or Social Sciences, they are both used in universities all over and the distinction is negligible. The argument will continue long into the future no matter what it is, so it's probably better in the long run just to make a decision early and stick with it.--Dnjkirk 07:32, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * History should not be in "Social Sciences" because it is not a scientific discipline or attempting to be a scientific discipline. Social Sciences are those disciplines that try to use scientific methods to study human beings, such as sociology and psychology.  Political Science can be included because many of its practitioners use scientific methods such as statistical analysis and scientific polling.  A simple rule of thumb, if the discipline includes "science" or "-ology" in its names then it should be considered a "science".  Given a list of departments I would never look in "social sciences" for history. History is like the study of literature or art, not like sociology.   It searches for understanding, not scientific technocratic solutions. --125.60.227.202 12:59, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

List of teachers
If learners are teachers and teachers are learners, shouldn't a list of active participants by definition include the list of both teachers and learners? Why must this be reproduced?--Dnjkirk 07:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Totally Redone!!
Strategic Studies has completely cribbed the template from Humanities and created their own killer page. It's probably better set up now for a cribbing by Social Sciences, if someone's up to the task... Right now I've got to get on redesigning Strategic Studies' templates! HOHO!!--Dnjkirk 16:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Genealogy
I would like some input on exactly where Genealogy belongs. I don't see anything on it yet, but am interested in starting something. As it's own department? Or as a sub-department under ... perhaps History? I'm open to suggestions. Wjhonson 07:48, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

New page format
I started Portal:Social Sciencesnew as a work space for new designs of Portal:Social Sciences. My main goal was to include featured content and links to other Wikiversity content about Social Sciences. --JWSchmidt 00:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Active participants

 * Roy H. Brown, LCSW - interested in teaching
 * Ruzzel Brian Mallari- needs help for School of Demography kindly email me: rcmallari1@up.edu.ph
 * Emanuele Canegrati - interested in teaching Political Economy and Political Economy Projects —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JWSchmidt (talk • contribs) 23:43, 21 January 2007 (UTC).
 * William Hamblin 07:46, 16 May 2010 (UTC) - Working on developing the new department of military history.

Things you can do
The "todo" list box is currently being truncated and is virtually useless for this reason at the moment. Can anyone fix this? I've tried to figure it out, but failed. The Jade Knight 00:29, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

In need of Peer Review/Criticism
I am looking for some serious critiquing on my project here, I know many of you are probably busy enough. But, I do not feel dignified by begging. Recovery_psychology--recovery psychologist 01:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Congratulations on your very substantial work on this resource. I will gradually take a look and see if I can help where I can - I have much to learn from it and an interest in humanistic/positive psychology, and anti-psychiatric viewpoints. I like the way you've positioned the topic in the introduction (as academic but also activist). I didn't look closely enough yet, but does recovery psychology include examination of the history of anti-psychiatric arguments e.g., Thomas Szasz? -- Jtneill - Talk 01:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely examing anti-psychiatry arguements point-counter point is essential to recovery psychology, since the recovery concept is very much influenced by anti-psychiatry. Actually on the humanistic-positive psychology aspects, I was working with another student-consumer who felt it all should be humanistic, I felt it should be eclectic or integrated school of thought (all except the Freud) Positive psychology, although when I read what I have seen so far on it looks like it is not very accepting of persons with psychological disorders, as if it is only about the so called normal, pathologically normal, or chronically normal finding happiness...other than that I would say that positive psychology and recovery psychology would be like twins (except one has a mental illness) --recovery psychologist 20:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I've semi-randomly flipped through some Recovery psychology pages, and am appreciating the depth and quality of the material. One thought for you is to consider renaming the pages by topic rather than by lesson number. You could still have a sequential course outlined, but it would also facilitate people being able to come in and find and learn from specific, single topics. -- Jtneill - Talk 02:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I will have to consider that...If you see the talk page on the course summary page; I have thought of doing that study I mention there offline, since I guess we are not supposed to do any actual or original research here on wikiversity, but it would be APA published research paper, the question of self-promotion comes in it I qoute myself after I am officially published, what are the ethics or guidelines here on that?--recovery psychologist 20:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi RP, I don't see any problem with original research on wikiversity, e.g., see Portal:Research. If you do consider renaming, maybe see Naming conventions. Here's an example of a way I've created sequenced content, but also created lessons with unique and descriptive names Survey research methods and design in psychology. Hope this helps. -- Jtneill - Talk 05:11, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Critical Updates
The Social Sciences Portal is in need of critical updates, as opposed to discussing them, I'm going to start making the changes and as people disagree with the changes,I beg for feedback and help in attempting to revitalize Wikiversity ... let's not let this good thing, fade away.

Some major projects that I am going to be working on are:

-Wikiversity Social Sciences Summit 2009 (WS3 2009) scheduled for 21 - 25 September,2009; more to follow. Make sure to check back into the page as often as possible for updates.

-Wikiversity Social Sciences Featured Articles Program

-Wikiversity Social Sciences Featured Research Program

-Wikiversity Social Sciences Research Centers and Programs

Departmental Changes
I figured that this would be really controversial so I am going to give the reason why the change is being made so that folks don't get too upset. We are trying to define Social Sciences as if it were a wikipedia page by adding all of the different disciplines that we think should be added. As opposed to trying to redefine Social Sciences, why don't we just use the Wikipedia page to make the divisions. If you have an issue, change the Wikipedia page and then we can add it to the Wikiversity page. In essence, we're allowing the broader Wikipedian society to help us define the major Social Science Divisions ... flawed logic? This way we don't have a list of divisions that literally runs over a page long. We can have the departments within each division, represent the different disciplines that each Division may have. --JaylanHaley 04:08, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Makes sense enough. Do make sure you pay attention to Social_Sciences, however.  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 05:15, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The structuring of social sciences and related pages I think is quite mature, so this make sense. I've noticed especially on WV in the School: and Portal: name spaces a lot of rather empty structure, so by all means tidy up and be as consistent as possible not just with wikipedia but also check social sciences. Personally I've tended to drill bottom-up, e.g., I've tried to organise Psychology pages, but we need people approaching from all angles/levels. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 05:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * And I'm doing the same kind of work over at History. The Jade Knight (d'viser) 06:34, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * You know, I was just thinking, if we could get just one very active "bureaucrat"/participant from each of the schools here, that could be a very good thing. Right now, looks like we've got Jtneill for Psychology, JaylanHaley for Political Science, and me for History (and theoretically for Linguistics, but I mostly just ignore the School there, as I mostly am only interested in ELang).  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 06:43, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Great discussion thus far ... I am absolutely going to be working on the Political Science page and I have been thinking about taking on another project (Division) but for the next couple of weeks, I am going to be working on cleaning up the Social Sciences and Political Science Pages so that they can be streamlined and ready to go. In a couple of weeks I am going to be hosting the Wikiversity Social Sciences Summit and I encourage you all to attend.  The specifics of the conference have not been fully conceived but I think once I get everything organized it should be an interesting experience.  If anyone needs any help with anything, let me know.--JaylanHaley 17:19, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Category Tree
I think we should make a Category like the one below, but for the entire School. (This one is featured at Portal:History.)



The Jade Knight (d'viser) 06:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * And put it on the Portal. Forgot to mention that part.  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 06:38, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * That's an awesome idea ... I'll work on incorporating that into the Social Sciences page. I'll use the history link as the guinea pig.  Actually, I'll use the Political Science Department.  Since it's a little thin.  I'll work on the categorization because that's going to be the biggest pain.--JaylanHaley 17:22, 2 September 2009 (UTC)