User talk:Boud

 Hello Boud, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

To get started, you may


 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
 * Visit a (kind of) random project.
 * Browse Wikiversity, or visit a portal corresponding to your educational level: pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, non-formal education.
 * Find out about research activities on Wikiversity.
 * Explore Wikiversity with the links to your left.


 * Read an introduction for teachers and find out how to write an educational resource for Wikiversity.
 * Give feedback about your initial observations
 * Discuss Wikiversity issues or ask questions at the colloquium.
 * Chat with other Wikiversitans on #wikiversity-en.
 * Follow Wikiversity on twitter (http://twitter.com/Wikiversity) and identi.ca (http://identi.ca/group/wikiversity).

You don't need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Ottava Rima (talk) 21:00, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation
It's true that I've neglected Wikiversity. I should note that physics isn't my area of specialization, and despite some amount of conversation on the topic I haven't actually done general relativity calculations, so I would make a much better student than teacher for your course. I have a few very general comments, and I could be far off base on them: Wnt 20:29, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Student level should be fine. Boud 13:08, 23 June 2011 (UTC)


 * As an instructor at a bricks-and-telescope university, your primary commitment is to your paying students. So my thought is that, however much you may organize notes here, your lectures to your students will be the best work you can do.  Therefore, I should ask: would you be willing to videotape them and contribute them here (or on Wikimedia Commons) as multimedia resources?  Likewise, would you be willing to scan the transparencies you draw, post your recommended reading list, give ISBNs and other details for the textbooks you use?  That way the larger community has an actual course to seed their organization, and can help in getting them organized into a form more easily read online. Wnt 20:29, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * i see university education as a human right under Article 26 of the Universal declaration of human rights, so IMHO the creeping McDonaldisation of the university system in Europe - allegedly related to the Bologna Process - should not affect my commitment to teaching them. Regular day students who do not fail subjects still (so far) do not have to pay fees AFAIK, though i admit that i have not followed the details of this human rights struggle. Anyway, to your concrete suggestions. This semester's course is finished, so it's too late to videotape. i can see arguments for and against videotaping next year (northern spring/summer 2012, most likely), but probably we can shift that discussion to the talk page once i start the main course page. i have some (brief) notes on my user page, i'll copy them over soon to the course page, but briefly, the pdf presentation (beamer presentation like powerpoint(TM) but with LaTeX + postscript source files) and WIMS exercises/exam constitute the main part of the course. The pdf extensively links to Wikipedia for in-depth reading. Anyway, this will make more sense once i have an approximate first draft in place. Boud 13:08, 23 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I do a lot of answering at w:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science. I think that in general Wikiversity should try to make this resource as much a part of it as it is of Wikipedia.  Thus, people with questions about the course you design should eventually (once it's pretty well established) post their questions to the Wikipedia refdesk, including a link back to your course so that these questions can be found.  The course should point students in that direction, and give them instructions on how to tag their questions, and provide an index of questions by your students which have been answered there (together with instructions how to add their own to this list).  Of course, I'm confident you personally can answer questions as they arise, but I don't know if you'll always have the time, and multiple perspectives might help. Wnt 20:29, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Connecting with the WP Reference desk is a good idea. Feel free to add a link if i forget :). As for me answering questions, best to redirect to the community - at the moment at Wikipedia IMHO there are a huge number of people competent to answer questions at this elementary level. Boud 13:08, 23 June 2011 (UTC)


 * My feeling is that Wikiversity needs much stronger teacher-student relationships, and that no course can ever be certified as complete unless it has actual students going through it from beginning to end who are in communication with the people writing the course. It isn't enough to have a nice design for a set of detailed lessons - Wikiversity has to have people actually doing their homework, taking their quizzes, and graduating the class, in order to become a reality.  (I know this apparently contradicts the previous point, but having both informal study groups and formal question periods seems necessary for education) Wnt 20:29, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * i suspect that you're right. In my case, next northern summer semester (Feb-June 2012, presumably), communicating with Wikiversity students "simultaneously" (except for students flying past in rockets at nearly unity speeds) with local students would probably not take up much extra time for me (though i don't have great expectations for local students participating wikiwise). Once you have a look at WIMS exercises, you'll hopefully agree that this sort of exercise is potentially vastly superior to multiple choice quizzes, though the actual exercises i've prepared so far significantly underuse what is available in WIMS (partly because i'm using an old version). Boud 13:08, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I wish you success in all of your teaching endeavors.

Wnt 20:29, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks :). Let's get to work... Boud 13:08, 23 June 2011 (UTC)