Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/February 2013

Links to subpages broken?
It seems that linking like this /subpage or is not currently working on en.wv. Anyone know why - or should we report as a bug? Sincerely, James -- Jtneill - Talk - c 20:52, 1 February 2013 (UTC)


 * It's working for me. All of the lesson links on Internet protocol analysis are /subpage links.  Do you have an example of a broken page? -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:26, 2 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Dave. You're right the links on Internet protocol analysis look fine. I noticed some problems with Candidates for Custodianship. I've made a test on Sandbox - see http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiversity:Sandbox&oldid=997404 - which I think shows the problem - maybe the problem is for subpage links in namespace pages? -- Jtneill - Talk - c 03:05, 2 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Looks like somebody simplified the subpage setting in InitialiseSettings.php for many wikimedia wikis, but broke subpages for the project namespace by removing a hack from CommonSettings.php. -- dark lama  04:56, 2 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Darklama, can you describe how you found this? I'd like to understand more of the MediaWiki internals and how to troubleshoot something like this.  Thanks! -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 21:17, 2 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I found Wikimedia's setup more by luck than by documentation. I study the MediaWiki website, the mediawiki source code, and the autogenerated documentation extracted from the source code to learn the internals of MediaWiki. Is this what you want to know? -- dark lama  00:33, 3 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's it. Thanks! -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:51, 3 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Reported in bug #44546. -- dark lama  15:41, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks all. Amazed you could sleuth this Darklama - thankyou! Looks like bug now fixed. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 01:23, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Starting a Wikiversity research project & Documenting crony capitalism
After spending a few days caving through Wikiversity, I created Documenting crony capitalism. I hope to use this to crowdsource research and investigative journalism in the details of how money gets translated into favors from government -- starting in the United States -- to the detriment of humanity. I'm working with Lawrence Lessig and his Rootstrikers organization. After posting some questions on Request_custodian_action, User:Marshallsumter suggested I move the discussion here.

User:Juan de Vojníkov suggested I "Add it to category Research". How do I do that? I tried something, which seemed to create a lot of questionable material after the "Notes" on Documenting crony capitalism. Thanks muchly. DavidMCEddy (discuss • contribs) 03:33, 4 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Add a link, like Category :User:DavidMcEddy]] to Sandbox would add the sandbox to the User:DavidMcEddy category. Links to the category namespace are treated special, just as links to files are. If you want an actual link to the category, you need to include ":" before the pagename, like Category:User:DavidMcEddy -- dark lama  18:08, 4 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I've created an article on Documenting crony capitalism with Categories: Original research, Research, Research projects, Political science, and Documenting crony capitalism. I've started creating an article on Finance industry in the United States.  This generates more questions about categories:
 * What are the differences between "original research", "research", and "research projects"? Should "research project" be a subcategory of "original research", and should "original research" be a subcategory of "research"?
 * How should this new article be categorized? In particular, how can I find the appropriate category for the politic unit, in this case, the United States?
 * Thanks, DavidMCEddy (discuss • contribs) 04:11, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Fascinating project David! I'll send it to User:Dblackal (my father) who is pretty new to Wikiversity, but an old hand at teaching and research Journalism, focused on ethics, which leads him into the territory you're mapping out. Regarding your questions on categories, using Wikiversity for research projects remains open ended I think. I use Wikiversity to document my research activities, from literature reviews, through qualitative and quantitative projects. I don't think anyone has tried to organise the categories, but your suggestion for a hiearchy Research>Original Research>Research projects seems like a good suggestion. At the sub category level where you have placed Original Research, I would think to add other categories such as Literature Reviews, Critiques, Reviews, Discussion papers, Presentations etc. Research projects are for works in progress, and may eventually produce something that can use one of the parent sub categories.
 * But more important is your project. I've only skimmed it at the moment, but it reads well, if a little lengthy. I hope DBlackall will pick it up and maybe get involved. Contact him off Wiki if you seek reliable communications. Leighblackall (discuss • contribs) 23:35, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Open Education Week
If anyone in Wikiversity is interested in holding an event for Open Education Week, I've started a page: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Open_Education_Week_2013 and an immediate subpage for a La Trobe University event - we are using the week to spark interest in this *new* concept for La Trobe. Hope others can do something as well, and get Wikiversity into the mix more strongly.

--Leighblackall (discuss • contribs) 23:04, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I am a librarian and I am studying the usefulness of different fields used to describe open educational resources and courses. Has Wikiversity done any studies of which fields users of your site find most useful?


 * What I am trying to do is to help librarians who may want to catalog OERs and courses. My sense is that describing OERs and courses will require different information than that we now use to describe bibliographic items.


 * Thanks in advance for your help.


 * Luis Rodriguez
 * Kean University
 * Union, NJ 07803
 * lurodrig@kean.edu
 * --LuisRodriguezLibrarian (discuss • contribs) 16:13, 16 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Hello Luis, if we manage to put out a LiveStream of our event, I dare say the La Trobe University librarians will be keen to join such a discussion. We'll be using Google Hangouts, so a 2 way would be possible - if we can work out timezones. If not, we'll put out a recording and notes if we discuss this topic (I'm adding it as a suggested session).
 * My own view is that Wikiversity is not a homogeneous platform, and so any research that tried to summarise a user experience of Wikiversity generally, would be too broad in my opinion. Many of the volunteers here do try to present a homogeneous user experience, by arranging the front page and working on structural and navigation aids for people who are just browsing. I respect that work, but focus my effort on specific projects within the platform.
 * I see the present Wikiversity as a little more like Youtube, in that while it has a front page entry, most people upload and use it in specific and different ways. At the moment I think this is an appropriate use of a platform that is trying to support open education and learning practices - as infinitely diverse those practices can be.
 * So, I think in your work you would be better to catalog specific resources within Wikiversity, maybe categories, maybe project spaces, but definitely be as specific as possible, and not general across all Wikiversity. You wouldn't do it with a publisher, you'd be specific to the resource. Likewise with Wikiversity.
 * Wikipedia is different. I would class this as a single reference resource, because its brief is tight - encyclopedic articles. Wikipedia does more than that, but predominately we know its focus. Likewise with Wiktionary, Wikispecies, Wikinews, but less so with Wikisource, Wikivoyage and Wikimedia Commons, and much less so with Wikibooks and Wikiversity. For these you would need to be specific, not general.
 * But this is just my opinion, no doubt others think differently on the question Leighblackall (discuss • contribs) 23:15, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Harvard Five-Foot Bookshelf (revisited)
--Jamespstout (discuss • contribs) 20:07, 26 February 2013 (UTC) Has anyone at Wikiversity considered a project to replicate the Harvard Five-Foot Bookshelf for today's needs? The original work could be replicated, and a new Bookshelf for Science and Technology could be developed.