Wikiversity:Featured

This page coordinates and informs about featured content on Wikiversity.

What is featured content?
Featured content is considered, for a variety of reasons, to present Wikiversity at its best to the general public. Featured content may show exemplary course design, a novel, usable and fully functioning approach to wiki-based education, or educational resources that have simply reached a high state of completion or had very large amounts of work done on them.

See also: the Picture of the Day system

How is featured content displayed to the public?
There are a number of ways featured content is used.


 * 1) Featured content on Wikiversity is regularly rotated in the "today's featured project" on the main page.
 * 2) A wider range of material from this page, including content which is proposed-for but not-yet featured, is included in a special pseudo-random-page system accessed from the left-hand navigation panel on every page of Wikiversity - see Random project.
 * 3) Many portals also have featured content. This page can be used for finding resources which are suitable for featuring on specific portals. Portals tend to set the bar for featured content somewhat lower, so portals may also feature content not listed here.

An important difference between featured content on Wikiversity and featured content on much larger projects is that on Wikiversity, featured content is rotated. On very large projects, featured content is selected by special interest groups several weeks or months in advance, and is always new. On Wikiversity, to save time, and as a result of the lower level of content production, featured content is rotated on a daily basis. Featured content therefore reappears on the main page at regular intervals.

Who selects featured content?
Selecting and maintaining a featured content system requires a time-consuming long-term commitment and a wide knowledge of Wikiversity content. Few people have ever been prepared to invest time in this. On larger projects, featured content is usually selected by democratic vote. However democratic systems only work when there is a large enough body of well-informed participants in a featured content project. The Wikiversity system is unfortunately rather autocratic at the current time, but any user can propose content (just add it below) and comment on other suggestions. Please inform yourself widely about featured content before commenting if you can.

There is no formal system of criteria at the current time, but you can discuss proposals for criteria on the talk page. On the whole, it would be desirable if featured content could represent as many different subjects and educational levels as possible.

Other ways of drawing attention to educational resources
The following ideas have been suggested at some time or other:
 * Events
 * Add an "events" entry to the left-hand navigation panel, which links to an events page, which in turn lists upcoming events (e.g. meetings, synchronous discussions). This would require someone prepared to regularly maintain the page.
 * Notify events on Mediawiki:sitenotice (requires custodian) or in the main page news box (registered users).
 * Projects and resources in need of development
 * These are "development drives". A development drives page could be created and maintained, which randomly rotates project links in the "development" box on the main page. This would require someone prepared to regularly maintain the page.
 * Projects and resources in need of participants
 * This idea relates to educational resources which are "ready" for the public, but which may have very little content because the content is supposed to come from active community participation. These projects might be candidates for featured status once a community has created a substantial body of content, but at the current time these resources are more sketches or skeletons of ideas for participatory learning. The idea of drawing attention to these is to attract participants who will "develop" the resource, but "development" here is not meant in the usual sense of "development" (as in "development drive") because development (production) and use (consumption) merge. A "needs-participants" page could be created and maintained, which randomly rotates project links in the "community" box on the main page. This would require someone prepared to regularly maintain the page.
 * One could also classify a participation drive as an "event"

Current featured content
Category:Featured resources


 * Reference: Archive of discussions of successful featured content
 * Tour: Featured content
 * Admin: Template:Featured Content/Nav, Template:FOTD, Template:FOTD/CALC, Template:cool, Template:hot
 * Number of pages in featured resources: c. 1500-1600 (about 17%-18% of Wikiversity content)
 * Number of featured resources: 18
 * Average size of featured resources: 83-88 pages

Shortlisted
''This is an administrative section. It contains content which will shortly be added to featured content. The content listed here is currently being cleaned up and checked prior to featuring. Please feel welcome to help with the polishing process. When material here has been processed, it is archived at Archive of discussions of successful featured content.''

New proposals for featured content

 * 1) If you propose something, please give a very brief reason/description (max 1 line) and sign your name. Thanks!
 * 2) Others: please add your comments below the proposal and sign your name too. Thanks!

Please help identify well developed or complete science resources to feature during Year of Science 2016. --mikeu talk 20:20, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

IT Fundamentals
IT Fundamentals is an excellent resource and very useful. --mikeu talk 23:11, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Review of IT Fundamentals:

The course is aimed at the IT Fundamentals certification. At the outset IT is not a specialty. My initial impression from looking at the course materials starting at Wikiversity is that they are smart, smooth, and well-presented. There are 15 lessons. If there are any weaknesses with the course, I would expect them to be with a dependency on Wikipedia. Sampling, I looked at

1. Hardware and chose something I haven't heard of or read before: from Wikipedia "In computing, a computer bus operating with double data rate (DDR) transfers data on both the rising and falling edges of the clock signal.[1][page needed] This is also known as double pumped, dual-pumped, and double transition." From Google scholar I found using "double date rate" and "the rising and falling edges of the clock signal": "For example, a double date rate (DDR) technique may be used, in which both the rising and falling edges of the clock signal are used to latch data." This informs me that on the certification exam something analogous, similar, or exactly phrased would be accepted as the correct answer to "What is DDR?"

4. Virtualization: from Wikipedia on Cloud computing "SureCloud computing, also on-demand computing, is a kind of Internet-based computing that provides shared processing resources and data to computers and other devices on demand." From Google scholar I found using "cloud computing" and "shared processing resources and data": "Cloud computing, also on-demand computing, is a kind of Internet-based computing that provides shared processing resources and data to computers and other devices on demand." The statement is referenced [25][24] to [R. Meireles, M. Boban, P. Steenkiste, O. Tonguz, and J. Barros, “Experimental study on the impact of vehicular obstructions in vanets,” in Vehicular Networking Conference (VNC), 2010 IEEE, pp. 338–345, IEEE, 2010.] and [Md Whaiduzzaman, Mehdi Sookhak, Abdullah Gani, Rajkumar Buyya, “A survey on vehicular cloud computing” , Journal of Network and Computer Applications.] respectively. Again, I would expect this answer would be successful on the certification exam.

9. Commands and Scripting: from Wikipedia "Path (computing)": "A path, the general form of the name of a file or directory, specifies a unique location in a file system." I found on Google Scholar using "specifies a unique location in a file system" and "path": "A “file path” specifies a unique location in a file system. A path points to a file system location by following the directory tree hierarchy expressed in a string of characters in which path components, separated by a delimiting character, represent each directory."

12. Security: from Wikipedia "Hardening (computing)": "In computing, hardening is usually the process of securing a system by reducing its surface of vulnerability, which is larger when a system performs more functions; in principle a single-function system is more secure than a multipurpose one." Using "reducing its surface of vulnerability" and "hardening" on Google Scholar I found "Operating system hardening is the process of securing an operating system by reducing its surface of vulnerability."

While this is by no means a thorough examination of the merits of the course and its potential to students, it does demonstrate that the creator has double checked on Wikipedia to make sure the correct and necessary information is being conveyed to students through perhaps the weakest link. Although the course is relatively new to Wikiversity, I endorse its being rated as a Featured resource. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 02:16, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Motivation and emotion
Motivation and emotion is one of the longest run and most developed projects on wikiversity. Very high quality. --mikeu talk 23:07, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and added Motivation and emotion as a featured course: Featured_content/20 and bumped the FOTD counter: Template:FOTD/CALC. I've tried adding it the featured content tour, but isn't showing: Template:Featured Content/Nav. Seems to be something to with being at the end? -- Jtneill - Talk - c 04:54, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Effective defense and ISIL
Effective defense and ISIL is a quality resource that thoroughly cites the sources used to present a neutral point of view on a topic currently in the news. --mikeu talk 20:26, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

The Crafting Freedom Project
The Crafting Freedom Project is an excellent resource in the public humanities. It tells the stories of how historic events have an impact on the everyday lives of people who are caught up in events beyond their control. --mikeu talk 21:10, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Egyptian Verbal System (and its Vocalization)
Egyptian Verbal System (and its Vocalization) is one of the more fascinating projects that I've stumbled upon. It is surely a topic of rather idiosyncratic interest, but it is very well done. Resources on this subject would be difficult to find elsewhere. --mikeu talk 22:15, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Places to go hunting for featured content

 * Category:Completed resources
 * Completed courses list
 * Google search of wikiversity.org
 * Special:MostRevisions (NB: this only has data up to September 2007, so of limited current use).
 * Most edited pages (possibly far more out of date even than the above).
 * Participants - some of the most active participants are engaged in content development, so keep an eye on what they are producing.

Most desired content
This section lists content which is most strongly desired by Wikiversity participants, but which falls far short of featured status. If you wish to create content which quickly becomes featured, then this is a good place to look for projects to work on.

French stream
French stream


 * French. Compare French stream (people who have explicitly stated a desire to learn French) and Category:French. This is a case where demand clearly outstrips supply. Just by providing a coherent set of French learning language resources, we would cater for visitors far better. --McCormack 09:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Spanish
Spanish


 * Spanish. Ditto. Compare Spanish/Registration with Spanish. --McCormack 09:56, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Its my dream to find a wiki way to help in the area:(--Juan 09:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Content which was proposed and rejected
Items placed here are periodically archived at /Archive/Delisted.

Related resources

 * Educational Media Awareness Campaign - includes the Picture of The Day system.