School talk:History/Archive 2007

Goals*

 * School talk:History/Archive 2006
 * I hate to rain on your parade, but if you know what you're looking for, the books could just as easily be obtained from Amazon or in the regards of articles Lexis/Nexus or First Search if you happen to work at a school/library. If you know how to properly research, a university library is not the end-all-be-all. --Kfitton 17:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Focus*
Being a small department, I think focus should be important. How many courses can reasonably be offered, and in what areas? How do we get (and keep) discussions going, which seems to be the thrust of the department currently? Would Audio help? A "day" the discussions are held? IRC?

What should be the ordering of future courses, and is there a "stream" of courses that the school is working towards? Historybuff 21:02, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Style*

 * School talk:History/Archive 2006
 * I'm going to vote for Turabian, just because it's a bit easier to use than Chicago. --Kfitton 20:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I've just started using Office 2007, there is a built in citation support that covers both chicago and turabian - just in case anyone is interested. --Kfitton 18:14, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Just a thought, isn’t history apart of the humanities section that uses primarily the MLA citation style?The G 04:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know how it is in the other universities, but here in my province, we only use the Chicago style. My history teachers would kill me if I use any other. Sekhmetdesign 21:18, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
 * History is usually considered a Social Science (though sometimes part of the Humanities). Chicago Style is the universally accepted notation format for History, though.  In my studies I've had to learn MLA, APA, and Chicago, and I much prefer Chicago, anyways.  The Jade Knight 10:12, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Course numbering?*

 * School talk:History/Archive 2006


 * We could always start with giving a number for the course, depending on its level and difficulty: level 200 are easy, introductory classes; level 300 are intermediary classes that goes deeply into a subject in History; and level 400 for more advanced, specialized classes. Sekhmetdesign 21:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Do we allow departments to number their own courses? Or should it be a School-wide system?  If a school-wide system, why use the arbitrary -00 numbers?  The Jade Knight 10:13, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Determining "Expertise"*

 * School talk:History/Archive 2006


 * I actually like this idea. Anyone else have an opinion of it?  The Jade Knight 10:14, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussion Tags
I created the discussion tags to make it clear what issues concerning department policy are still being discussed, and encourage further comment. Should it use an image different than the checkmark? Perhaps a question mark? When consensus has been reached and something has been adopted, we should add a tag that states that consensus has been reached and the policy has been adopted. In the event that it's rejected, something could be added to that effect. What do you think? The Jade Knight 09:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * That sounds fine to me, however, it seems that there are only around 4 people actively discussing policy issues...is that enough to actually consist of a quorum? --Kfitton 15:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe not, but we have to work with what we have for the moment. BTW, do you have any suggestions for an icon besides the green checkmark?  The Jade Knight 08:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * How about a big question mark...or a gavel? --Kfitton 12:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Here are some options:


 * What do you prefer? The Jade Knight 18:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I would go with the yellow+black question mark/circle for discussions, the orange road sign for works in progress, and the note with a tack for the 'to do' list. --Kfitton 20:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Tasks
What do you think of the European History Department's "Tasks" page? Should we adopt one for the School of History, or perhaps simply have a page which shows all of the departmental tasks pages? The Jade Knight 09:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * We could probably use one...but I'm thinking more like a little box on the main school page instead of a complete seperate page of it's own. ala: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Community_Portal    --Kfitton 20:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I've created one designed to amalgamate department ones. I've also created an announcement page which will feed to all of the individual departments, as well.  Take a look at how I've integrated them with the department page and tell me what you think.  The Jade Knight 05:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Stimulating creation of content by starting with a structure
I am quite new to this wikiversity experience and not an expert in history at all, but seeing the extreme lack of structure forces me to react. I want to study history myself, and this department could be very interesting. The lack of structure scares me off. I just don't see where to start. Therefore, I would suggest starting to think about the structure. Why not even starting with an introduction, that explains what history is about, why someone would study it, and its relevance towards todays world?

Starting with a structure also inspires people. When it is clear what subjects there are to write about, people will write about it. The way it looks like now, scares people off, really.


 * One structure that could be used, is starting with a general outline of history, and then to go digging deeper in the material. An interesting source already is in development as wikibook 'world history'.
 * Another structure could be a chronological order.
 * There could also be thought about structuring the school in terms of a real university. What courses are given in the first year, what courses in the second year... etc.

It are just examples, but please start with thinking about the structure of the school.


 * Welcome to Wikiversity, Bartje! Right now, the School of History is just beginning to get things put together.  We don't have a ton of content, and we're working on figuring out what we want and what we don't.  If you're just looking for something to get involved with, the European History Department has a list of user-friendly tasks that you could jump right into.  Hopefully other Departments within History will also create similar lists.  The Jade Knight 18:05, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Bartje -- thanks for the feedback. As Jade has pointed out, we are quite new (both Wikiversity and the History department), so we are both learning and getting organized.
 * Jade -- What is the general state of the History stuff at Wikibooks? Would any of that stuff be helpful in generating courses?
 * I'm a buff, but interested in learning and developing Wikiversity further. Together we can make it better. :) Historybuff 15:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't really know how History looks at Wikibooks, but the School of History's Resources Page may be a good place to start looking. The Jade Knight 22:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reactions, it isn't easy to make a structure in a community like this. I'll dig into the wikibooks, but some of my own as well, for inspiration. I'll look around at other schools on how they organize their department of history, with their related courses. Links to other departments might be made, like certain courses of the anthropology department, the sociology department etc... If there is a place, like a chatroom where we could talk (type), meet in realtime, let me know. If there isn't one yet, it might be good to look around for one. It is easier to talk.Bartje
 * There isn't one that I'm aware of. Email me, and I can provide AIM/MSN contact info.  And, last time I checked, there were no relevant courses available in other Schools yet.  From time to time I go over to the Classics or Music Schools to see if they've added history courses, but last time I checked there weren't any.  It is good to do cross-departmental sorts of things, though.
 * Right now, the individual Departments have a lot of autonomy, and the kind of structure you're talking about looks like it'd be uniform across the school. Is that better than letting Departments decide for themselves?  In terms of strict content, that is something that individuals are going to contribute as they see fit.  Those of us discussing this, though, get to be the "bureaucrats" who decide how to organize it all.  You may be interested in heading over to the Department of European History's talk page and seeing the sort of structure/content discussions that are going on there.  The question remains, however, as to how much we're going to structure content here, and how much we're going to let individual Departments do that.  The Jade Knight 23:08, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikiversity does evidently have an IRC channel, but I'm not around there often. The Jade Knight 05:33, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I've added a section to the beginning of the School page, featuring tasks. What do you think?  The Jade Knight 05:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Active Participants*
As the list of Active Participants is growing, I think we should perhaps move these lists to the Departmental level, and keep coordinators and liaisons here. However, that would introduce the problem of some people who are considered "coordinators" abusing authority, or thinking that it's significant at all to be a "coordinator". "Liaison" may be a better choice.

So, what do you think of simply listing a liaison for each Department in the School of History in the "Active Participants" section of the site, and providing a list of people to contact for specific sorts of concerns? The Jade Knight 10:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Requesting a World History course
I see many courses offered for various regions, but none for the general, comprehensive history of the human world. (Human) world history is used to keep the scope of the course on human events, as this is in the department of humanities, and the word history is becoming somewhat archaic (that is, the old line between history and prehistory has been getting fuzzy over the recent decades).

But seriously, I've heard of general world history courses in college, so Wikiversity should have a parallel, right? Xaxafrad 04:28, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

World History is a very broad subject, it will be need to be grouped by time period or something. How about the History of the Ancient World? Or The World of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately my Ancient History is basically nil. But the Classics department could help out. (?)

Geminibubblegum 17:02, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Again, I'm referencing a 'typical' US university - a 'world history' class typically turns into one of several things: Western Civ, Eastern Civ, or Histories of the Third World. On a 100 level, there typically isn't time to cover all three and are usually broken up into seperate classes. --Kfitton 17:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * My alma mater broke it up into two courses: World Civilizations to 1500, and World Civilizations after 1500.  The Jade Knight 20:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I've seen a pair of textbooks at my local library that are divided similarly. Should I check them out and start paraphrasing material? Xaxafrad 04:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I dont see why not, but remember citations - even for paraphrasing, you're still using material. --Kfitton 16:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)