Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/October 2013

hit tracking
Is there a way to view the hits of a given page? if not I think one should be implemented (preferably with goggle analytics which has really nice maps and such :D)


 * Yes, you can see the count of page views for a resource under View history, Readers. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:58, 23 August 2013 (UTC)


 * If you mean the 'Statistics' link, a message comes up when you click it saying the tool no longer exists.


 * No, I mean View history, Readers (the Readers link). It shows hit counts for 30, 60, or 90 days.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 23:01, 26 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I invented a hit counter template which uses an external application that someone pointed out to me. It is   and I put it on the Talk page of any page.  It counts the hits on the resource page itself because of the MAGIC WORD SUBJECTPAGENAMEE used in the template. -- Droflet (discuss • contribs) 08:24, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The hitcounter template was created, but soon after its heavy use it became implemented automatically from the history page, under "Readers" - Sidelight12 Talk 07:45, 2 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I tried the hit-counter under View history, Readers, and received the following message: Safari can’t open the page “http://stats.grok.se/en.v/latest/Wikiversity:Colloquium” because Safari can’t find the server “stats.grok.se”. Perhaps my browser is too old. I contacted wikipedia user:emw who maintains the toolserver.org program that accesses stats.grok.se and wiki.toolserver to see if they can give me a copy of the program that accesses stats.grok.se to modify it to yield Wikiversity resource stats, but from above it appears others can see such stats. Is this still the case? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 17:26, 24 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I am able to access Readers counts on Chrome, Firefox, and Safari on a Mac (OS X 10.9), and Chrome, Firefox and IE on a PC (Windows 7). All are current versions.  The can't find server message usually indicates a DNS error rather than a browser error.  You can test DNS settings with  nslookup.  Try nslookup stats.grok.se .  You should get 46.253.202.68.  On a Mac, either a Terminal window with nslookup or the Network Utility Lookup tab will do the same thing.  Note from a security perspective, I recommend running the latest browser version available, whichever browser you use.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 00:29, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Vote to save Wikiversity at Wikimedia
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Move_betawikiversity_and_oldwikisource_to_Incubator
 * - Sidelight12 Talk 14:46, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * This suggestion here is biased canvassing. Wikiversity is not in danger. The proposal is about *betawikiversity* and *oldwikisource,* not "Wikiversity." I have no opinion on that proposal at this point. Yes, calling attention to the discussion is proper, but must be done in a neutral way, not soliciting a vote.
 * Some commentators don't seem to understand the difference between Wikiversity and betawikiversity. Here is Recent Changes for 30 days on Beta: . That does not show deleted pages. There were many more edits where apparent spam pages were deleted. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:54, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Notifications
(This message is in English, please translate as needed)

Greetings!

Notifications will inform users about new activity that affects them on this wiki in a unified way: for example, this new tool will let you know when you have new talk page messages, edit reverts, mentions or links -- and is designed to augment (rather than replace) the watchlist. The Wikimedia Foundation's editor engagement team developed this tool (code-named 'Echo') earlier this year, to help users contribute more productively to MediaWiki projects.

We're now getting ready to bring Notifications to almost all other Wikimedia sites, and are aiming for a 22 October deployment, as outlined in this release plan. It is important that notifications is translated for all of the languages we serve.

There are three major points of translation needed to be either done or checked:
 * Echo on translatewiki for user interface - you must have an account on translatewiki to translate
 * Thanks on translatewiki for user interface - you must have an account on translatewiki to translate
 * Notifications help on mediawiki.org. This page can be hosted after translation on mediawiki.org or we can localize it to this Wikipedia.  You do not have to have an account to translate on mediawiki, but single-user login will create it for you there if you follow the link.
 * Checklist

Please let us know if you have any questions, suggestions or comments about this new tool. For more information, visit this project hub and this help page. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:27, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
 * (via the Global message delivery system) (wrong page? You can fix it.)

EduWiki Conference 2013 - invitation to attend
Hi All,

Wikimedia UK's second annual EduWiki conference will take place in Cardiff, UK on 1 and 2 November 2013. The registration is open (link on the event page), so anyone interested to attend is welcome to book in October.

Queries about the conference or any other aspect of Wikimedia UK's Education activities can be sent directly to WMUK's Education Organiser toni.sant@wikimedia.org.uk

Many thanks, Daria Cybulska (WMUK) (discuss • contribs) 14:46, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Speak up about the trademark registration of the Community logo.
Hi all,

Please join the consultation about the Community logo that represents Meta-Wiki: m:Community Logo/Request for consultation.

This community consultation was commenced on September 24. The following day, two individuals filed a legal opposition against the registration of the Community logo.

The question is whether the Wikimedia Foundation should seek a collective membership mark with respect to this logo or abandon its registration and protection of the trademark.

We want to make sure that everyone get a chance to speak up so that we can get clear direction from the community. We would therefore really appreciate the community's help in translating this announcement from English so that everyone is able to understand it.

Thanks, Geoff & Yana 20:00, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

absence of educational patterns in the course list
A good univeristy catalogue has the virtue of showing the shape of one or more patterns of education. The alphabetical course list does not do this. And so for people seeking an education gives them no idea of the pattern or patterns of education they might usefully follow. using the courses listed. --76.109.164.42 (discuss) 04:25, 9 October 2013 (UTC)


 * It's probably more useful to refer to the different Schools for patterns of education to follow rather than the overall course listing. This would be similar to referring to program listings in a college catalog as opposed to the alphabetical course listing in the back.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:15, 9 October 2013 (UTC)


 * So something is missing from Wikiversity. So new? We don't have a shortage of ideas about what is wrong or what is missing, but a shortage of people with the skills and intention to supply what is missing. Wikiversity is a farrago of different approaches. Different courses offer different approaches. The people who were most interested in creating a university-like stucture are mostly gone. At least one is indefinitely blocked, because he was so disgusted at outside interference here, and local support for that, as he saw it, that he couldn't -- or wouldn't -- get over it. Others simply gave up, faced with the community reality, which is that mostly there isn't community. There are, with a few exceptions, many individuals pursuing independent work.
 * Some courses here are actually courses at brick-and-mortar institutions. Others only exist here. Many resources have been abandoned in mid-stream. Mostly, Wikiversity is not for people looking for education who are passive about it, i.e., who expect to be spoon-fed. But sometimes it is! --Abd (discuss • contribs) 19:51, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: September 2013
Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 07:45, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikimania 2014
Wikimania in 2014 will be held in London, UK, one of the program strands will be the impact that web based participants, material and organisations have and will have on educational practise and experience in future. As the wikimedia foundation's open learning project those here at wikiversity are most versed of our community in this area and can I ask those interested to provide insights and suggestions for this strand at Talk:Outreach/Education_Reformers.--KTo288 (discuss • contribs) 07:47, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Category:Fasten deletion request
See prior Colloquium discussion here and on User talk:Fasten. Fasten began creating the resources in question in 2007. In April, 2012, he put up an "absent" template on his user page. However, as his contributions show, he continued to edit extensively. He added a new link to his user page on July 28, 2013.

Then, two days later, with no apparent immediate cause or explanation, he began to massively tag pages he had created, with speedy deletion templates, "deletion requested by author." These are normally respected. There are exceptions. However, Fasten may have believed that the request would be enough, and it appears that his desire is to not participate here any more. That was visible back in April, 2012, actually.

The tagging was noticed, see the prior Colloquium discussion. A user, from that brief discussion, concluded that consensus was to keep the resources, and so this user removed all the speedy deletion tags -- a big job!. When I saw this, I concluded that it was also important to respect the user's request, which requires a consideration of deletion. It's not enough that one or two people think the resources are "good."

Please see Category:Fasten deletion request and the discussion on the attached Talk page. My current intention is to, after a decent pause for study, file a deletion request on Fasten's behalf, which is the place for an actual deletion consideration to take place, by our policy.

I have not concluded that deletion is appropriate, nor, of course, the reverse.

Some of the pages are only stubs or poorly developed, some are possibly good or excellent, and one resource is in Category:Featured resources, but without someone involved with the education of teachers to assess them, quality may be in appearance only, and without a participant taking active responsibility for the pages, maintaining quality may be an issue.

If we have some preliminary sense of the considerations, the RFD itself will be less knee-jerk and more based on fact. There is no rush. As can be seen on the Fasten talk page, linked above, I emailed Fasten. He still wishes the pages deleted.

All the discussions on this topic will be referenced in the RFD, and those who have commented will be notified if the RFD is filed. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 19:40, 11 October 2013 (UTC)


 * If the contributor has strong desire to delete it for whatever reason, or if it causes harm, then it should be deleted. I don't suspect either is the case. Whether some material is useful can be discussed. The featured content shouldn't be deleted, because it doesn't match the reason given, that no interest was taken in it. - Sidelight12 Talk 20:15, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
 * There is no claim of harm. However, it can occur that an open claim of harm can cause harm by calling attention to a situation.
 * "Strong desire" is not an element in our policy. However, the user spent about three hours tagging all the pages with a speedy deletion template, which does indicate a level of motivation. I emailed the user, see Fasten emailed for my report. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 20:52, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep it, unless Fasten comes here himself and posts that this (un-featured content) must absolutely be deleted. If this happens, I will support his wishes, with the exception of featured content. For featured content to be deleted, a good reason must be made by Fasten for me to support that. - Sidelight12 Talk 22:32, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

And that's just what's so. It looks good. It should. Fasten worked long and hard, but never completed it. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 01:29, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
 * This is not the page on which to make a delete/keep decision. Rather, here, I'm soliciting broader attention to the resource. On the on hand, one of the pages proposed for deletion by the author is a featured resource: Assistant teacher course. However, the author considered the resource less than half complete, and actually and explicitly abandoned it, for the most part, in 2008. See some of the history on Category talk:Fasten deletion request. The resource looks very good from the top level; the author, however, was clearly disappointed that nobody assisted him. Nobody else was willing to take responsibility for this course. Do we have a pile of frosting with no cake? I'm soliciting educator input, in particular.
 * "Featured resource" may mean less than some might think. I"ve looked. There was no featured resource process to speak of, and I saw no discussion. The last time Template:Featured Content/Nav, which controls the display of Featured content on the main page, was updated, was in August, 2008.
 * 17 July 2008. Course added to Nav so that it appears on main page in the rotated featured content display.
 * 5 Aug 2008, Fasten adds umaintained tag to Assistant teacher course.
 * 10 Sept 2008 Fasten removes unmaintained tag
 * 29 September 2008‎ Featured template added to course
 * 5 October 2008 Fasten returnes unmaintaiined tag to course.
 * So for six years we have had a featured resource that was never considered more than half complete by the author, that had been explicitly abandoned by the author, who was persuaded to withdraw a 2008 deletion request, which was snowing keep anyway, by an apparent hope that others would help work on it, which never materialized.

This Month in Education: October 2013
 If this message is not on your home wiki's talk page, update your subscription &middot; Distributed via Global message delivery, 19:15, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

--Sumanbm ibm (discuss • contribs) 09:05, 18 October 2013 (UTC) What is meanbyColloquium

Is this a NPOV free zone?
I am totally new to wikiversity despite have been an editor on Wikipedia for many years. Hence it is not surprising that I don't quite get Wikiversity. My first edit on What is God deleted a bit that was to me clearly POV. Okay, I now appreciate that Wikiversity does not strictly keep to NPOV principles. However, that article has a very narrow view of God is written as if this was the only possible truth. It makes claims that are impossible to verify such as 'Many if not all of the world's great religions have arisen around the teachings of mystics (including Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tze, and Krishna)'. None of these have accounts of there lives that are independent and claim that Jesus was a mystic would be controversial among Christians. It is a statement based simply on faith. If that article fits within wikiversity principles then it seems to be very much anything goes. How can disagreements be resolved. Is it intended that there will eventually be as many 'What is God' pages as points of view? This is not just a matter of Christian and Buddhist etc. There are multiple Christian and Buddhist answers to that question. There is just a atheist answer to that question there are are multiple atheist answers to that question. If everyone is free to answer the question in their own way then I wonder if that freedom is workable only to the extent that few have taken up that freedom.Dejvid (discuss • contribs) 14:33, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Great question, Dejvid. Strictly speaking, we don't have "articles" here, we have "learning resources." Learning resources can express a point of view. However, we do have, like all WMF wikis, an overall neutrality policy. So the real issue here, with What is God is how what is obviously a personal essay is being presented. As a quick fix, when I saw your edit, I tagged the page as an essay. However, we can do better than that. The problem exists at God, which then links to this page as if it were a subpage. The entire God resource has been organized by the same user, building on what was only a stub, and giving his rather personal point of view. He may think of that point of view as "universal," but it isn't.
 * There are many ways to handle the issue, but I just did the quick fix to address that one point. This page does not belong in mainspace at the top level. The solution is not to edit the essay, per se, but to frame it and place it appropriately. If it is purely personal, it would go into the user's space. However, the user is attempting something more general than that, and the essay can be used to stimulate thought on the issue. The God resource has been organized by this same user, all the substantive content there is from him. Hence I will consider this as part of a "seminar on God," and will organize it accordingly in the next few minutes. This will require a lot of page moves.... Basically, we may have ideas about how Wikiversity could or should be organized, but few participants who will actually do the work. Nobody was watching when the user took over that page and created a pile of linked pages. Once upon a time, I'd have been on this immediately, because when I was a sysop here, I watched all Recent Changes, and acted to organize. Not to exclude or delete, just to organize. Usually, the users welcomed this, because it made their content safe from deletion or revert warring. I'll come back, reporting on what I did, for review. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:05, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Done -- at least as a first pass. See God, which I reverted to the old state, before Nils edited it, and I added an Essay section, and linked Nils' essay from it, and moved all the other essays, to subpages. I make mistakes, so if anyone checks my work, it will be appreciated. Dejvid, what do you think? See, if we tried to enforce an NPOV policy here, and within the Wikipedia concepts of avoiding forks and not allowing subpages in mainspace, we'd have endless administrative hassles. Any user here can organize resources, and if it is done with respect, i.e., if the organization is neutral, it usually does not create conflict. The existence of his essay on God may stimulate others to write. Ultimately someone may develop the top-level resource, and I would insist that it remain rigorously neutral and, yes, expressed with NPOV, but it may still contain attributed opinion. We do not have a notability policy, per se, but we also do not want to allow misrepresentation. A page full of one person's opinion or the opinions of some faction could be out of balance and could misrepresent the overall state of knowledge on a subject. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:45, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

One of the other important differences between Wikipedia and Wikiversity is that Wikipedia's purpose is the content. Wikiversity's mission is the creation and use of both learning materials and activities for all age groups and learning levels. In that regard, it may not be the content itself that is particularly educational, but the activities necessary to create and manage that content. A primary school student may not produce a stellar learning resource, but the effort necessary to write, publish, and perhaps defend that work would be a tremendous learning experience.

I agree with Abd's approach that it is more important for us to focus on organizing and classifying content than it is to be in a hurry to prune or delete it. A truly educational environment fares better from multiple points of view rather than a single neutral perspective. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 20:48, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Precisely. Thanks, Dave. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 00:39, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

User:Glimmerguard, User:Shadowjack

 * For substantial periods of time, nobody has paid attention to the creation of what are really user essays in mainspace. Shadowjack/Glimmerguard has created many of these. Today I began moving them into user space. Some of these might be usable in some resource or other, but they would need to be placed in context of a learning resource. While they might have some value for someone, somewhere, they are highly idiosyncratic and would ordinarily have been deleted at various times in our history. It's simpler and less disruptive to move them into user space and to encourage the user to develop his or her writing there, and to cooperate with other users if it is is wished to establish them as educational resources. I did attempt to communicate with this user, who also has used his or her talk page to draft articles: and.
 * I'm noting this here because it is related to the question asked today, and because I'm doing something unilaterally to avoid conflict. Were these pages in mainspace, I and others might want to delete them, and if that is opposed, then WV:RFD would be necessary, which wastes time and creates work for custodians. These essays could possibly be, in some cases, subpages of a useful educational resource, but it's not at all obvious what that would be. So in user space, the user can develop them and, in time, some use might appear. Meanwhile, they do no harm in user space. I have often suggested to, instead of going to RFD for inappropriate content, just move it to user space, where that is appropriate. If the user or someone else moves it back, or if there is some actual harm, then maybe RFD might be needed. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 02:07, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Workflow for Students Bringing Materials
Hello, I'm a university student. Over 10000 students in my university produce a huge amount of material: Lecture notes, assignments, homework, presentations, slides, articles, etc. Some material gets uploaded to a central website, but most of it never reaches public usage. I had an idea: Create a platform where people can upload content, even scanned papers containing lecture notes. Then people can edit the content, translate it, digitize scanned text, etc. and produce high quality material suitable for publishing as free knowledge, allowing one to educated herself without paying way-too-much money to a university. Then I found Wikiversity. It seems to be a great place to upload the content. But is it suitable for the whole workflow I described? I need a place to hold raw material, work-in-progress files and ready organized material. Can such a workflow work with Wikiversity? If not, which tools can I use? I don't have time or money currently to develop my own web app for that, maintain my own server, etc. so I'm looking for a solution which reuses existing tools and platforms. Then I was try to get students to upload their content, and the creative process will begin :-) (Preferably, but still extra, there should be a way to upload content privately. Then someone can upload assignments/exams which aren't necessarily supposed to be shared freely, and not be worried about the university expelling them. This way the work of translating and editing these materials can be shared too.)

--Fr33domlover fw (discuss • contribs) 16:11, 22 October 2013 (UTC)


 * There are a couple of issues and opportunities with your proposal. Most important is content ownership.  See Wikimedia Terms of Use.  The assignments, slides, and articles are very likely to be copyright-protected.  Your instructors could post the content they developed and own, but students could not directly post content received from their instructors without permission.  The second issue is content format.  Wikiversity works well for text-based content.  It is less convenient for images and scanned content.  It still works, but it requires much more effort to publish, and much more detailed explanations of content ownership and release.


 * The opportunities are here for you and your classmates to use Wikiversity as a lecture notes repository and shared study area. Depending on the subjects involved, there may be others here who are willing to assist in developing and organizing this content.  In some cases, it may even be possible to convince your professors to join in the effort.  The advantages of shared educational resources aren't limited to the student perspective.


 * Privacy isn't an option here. If someone is worried about the university expelling them for sharing content, that's a clear indication that the content is neither free nor open, and shouldn't be shared regardless of the technology options available.


 * Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 18:27, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Investigación Universitaria en Panamá
Las universidades públicas y privadas después del proceso de acreditación tienen un compromiso, fortalecer la investigación universitaria y que los resultados de las mismas sean parte de la solución de múltiples problemas sociales que tenemos actualmente en nuestro país. Sin embargo, la realidad es otra, las universidades que son las generadoras de conocimiento, por cantidad de docentes altamente calificados, tienen una deuda con el país y esta es la transferencia de conocimiento, a través de los resultados de investigación de impacto. Las universidades públicas en nuestro país producen algo de investigación, sin embargo no se perciben los resultados, que muchas de la investigaciones son parte de un compromiso con la institución como docente, no como una vocación. - posted by AidaLuz30 (discuss • contribs)


 * Google Translate translation: University Research in Panama - The public and private universities after the accreditation process are committed to strengthen university research and the results thereof are part of the solution of many social problems we have today in our country. However, the reality is different, universities that are the generators of knowledge, many highly qualified teachers, owe a debt to the country and this is the transfer of knowledge through research results impact. Public universities in our country produced some research, however the results are not seen that many of the investigations are part of a commitment to the institution as a teacher, not a vocation.


 * The Wikiversity Colloquium is for questions, comments and suggestions about Wikiversity. You are welcome to create a learning project for University Research in Panama, or consider posting at Wikiversidad en Español if that is your preferred language.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 22:14, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary character changes
Hi!

While recently editing some resources, the monitoring computer has been displaying various keyboard options at the lower right of the editing window. In and of itself this has not been a problem, but in the last few days the appearance and disappearance of various choices results in the computer monitoring my edits to change some of my entries on its own. Sometimes "=" is changed to a small integral sign, as have s's been changed to this and other characters.

My browser is older so perhaps an update has occurred that now let's the local computer monitor here change these characters as it chooses, without any input from me. Am I supposed to make a choice in some way at the beginning of each edit or for the session in general each day?

Another question: at the top of each page we have a Notification option which let's us know of one, but how do I send one if I wish to thank an editor of an edit? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 21:39, 23 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure about the keyboard issue, but on my screen there is an option at the bottom of the keyboard list to Disable input tools. You might try that if it's giving you problems.  See Echo (Notifications) for more information on the notifications tool.  Thank now appears as a link in the page history. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 22:37, 23 October 2013 (UTC)


 * The Disabling works! Thanks! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 16:22, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Seeking Endorsements for Patterns of Peeragogy
Hello Wikiversitians!

I am working with other Wikimediaians on a Individual Engagement Grant about our directly using our Peer Learning handbook (read online at peeragogy.org or download the PDF latest version) to improve Wikimedia projects by better understanding how peers work together to produce knowledge! See our description below:

"Peeragogy is a framework of techniques for peer learning and peer production. As pedagogy theoretically articulates the transmission of knowledge from teachers to students, peeragogy describes the way peers produce and utilize knowledge together. We have been working together as a volunteer team since January, 2012 to build a public domain Peeragogy Handbook that communicates practical strategies for successful collaboration, learning, and adaptation. We see Wikimedia as a living case study in peeragogy. In the six-month project we propose, we would use peeragogical methods to enhance Wikimedia as a peer-learning platform."

If you believe this will improve Wikiversity and all Wikimedia projects as places for peers to come together and learn and improve the world's knowledge base, please endorse our project!

--Charles Jeffrey Danoff (discuss • contribs) 20:52, 25 October 2013 (UTC)