Wikimedia in higher education/2013/University of Sydney

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About
This one day symposium brought academics and editors together, to discuss best practise for using Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia and Wikiversity as platforms for education within the Australian higher education system.

Background
Wikipedia Education Programs have had mixed success in countries where they have been run (Austria, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Egypt, Germany, India, Italy, Macedonia, Mexico, Russia, United Kingdom, or United States) under the auspices of the Wikimedia Foundation. For example:
 * 1) India: Plagued with problems
 * 2) United States and Canada mildly successful at engaging students and resulting in new and valued content contributions but has had limited success in converting students to long-term contributors
 * 3) Arabic speaking countries: There are early signs of the program being considered a success in terms of both content and longer-term contributors

There are numerous instances of "Wikipedia in education" course-work already being run in Australia, without incident; however they are either not disclosed or not well advertised, and invariably there has been little opportunity to discuss these in an academic setting within the Australian academic community. There is also a course which has successfully integrated Wikinews into learning outcomes; however there are concerns about the scalability of this idea.

Images
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Speakers

 * Kerry Kilner, Kerry Kilner, Research Fellow, School of English, Media Studies and Art History, University of Queensland
 * Salvatore Babones, Senior Lecturer, Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney
 * Matthew Todd, Matthew Todd, Senior Lecturer, Chemistry, University of Sydney
 * James Neill, Jtneill,, Assistant Professor, Centre of Applied Psychology, University of Canberra
 * Toby Hudson, 99of9, tobyhudson, Lecturer, Theoretical Materials Chemistry, School of Chemistry, University of Sydney
 * Liam Wyatt, Wittylama, wittylamaTutor and researcher, History in Modern Indian Studies, University of New South Wales
 * Leigh Blackall, Leighblackall, leighblackall piloting open educational development at La Trobe University. Proposal to the symposium
 * Stuart Fraser, Lecturer, Disciplines of Physiology, Anatomy & Histology, School of Medical Science, University of Sydney
 * Bec Plumbe, Educational Designer, School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney
 * Mylee Joseph, Aliaretiree, Leading the Innovation Project, extending the use of social media tools and online engagement at the State Library of New South Wales
 * Kathryn Barwick, Rubicon49bce, Project Officer, Innovation Project, University of Sydney

Intended outcomes

 * Short term measures of success
 * Engagement of academics who are already using Wikimedia in education.
 * Expertise shared with academics who are interested but are not yet using Wikimedia.
 * Report on the symposium to be provided by the University of Sydney and released as CC-BY-SA to provide:
 * evidence-based recommendations on best-practise for education using English Wikipedia in Australia,
 * suggested list of ways to integrate other Wikimedia projects into higher education,
 * recommendation on how to navigate between commonalities in student confidentiality policies and the disclosure expected by English Wikipedia.
 * summary of other legal issues regarding using Wikimedia projects within Australian higher education,
 * Journal articles written by attendees about the use of Wikimedia in education to be submitted to relevant journals/conferences


 * Medium term measures of success
 * Two well-advertised instances of English Wikipedia being used in the classroom in the second semester of 2013
 * 100 Australian students as new English Wikipedia contributors, with pseudonyms known to by least the Wikimedia Australia membership, and more publicly if legally possible.


 * Suggestions for future goals
 * List of Australian higher education teaching projects which use Wikimedia projects
 * Well-developed and promoted "featured" examples of the use each of the different Wikimedia sister projects in higher education in Australia. Also include example of the use of multi-language functionality of the projects.

Ideas and issues about ways to manage university Wikimedia projects

 * Types of assessment tasks?
 * Which projects?
 * Training?
 * Monitoring/quality?
 * Wikieducator overlap?
 * See also
 * w:Wikipedia:Assignments for student editors
 * School and university projects (Wikipedia)
 * School and university projects (Wikiversity)