Wikiversity:Mentors

A Wikiversity mentor is a person who volunteers to answer questions, provides advice, guides people in their learning and/or helps develop learning materials for Wikiversity. We encourage you to include mentor userboxes on your user page that identify what areas you are willing to mentor in. Mentors are often learners, so you do not need to be an expert in order to help.

The purpose of mentor userboxes is to quickly alert learners what areas you are willing to help out in. Mentor userboxes are an informal agreement to help anyone you can out. A mentor/learner relationship built on mutual sharing, learning, understanding, trust, and respect for one another is one of the most mutually beneficial relationships that can exist in an educational environment.

Mentor Types
There are several types of mentors, with considerable overlap between the types.

Education Mentor
An education mentor is a person who helps and guides learners in their education on Wikiversity. Mentors encourage learners to complete course work and their education objectives. Mentors help learners progress in their learning by offering advice, providing feedback on assignments, and by answering what questions they can. A mentor's ability to help may be limited by their own education.

Mentors often sign up for courses they are willing to take an active role in. Mentors that have chosen to take an active role in courses often help learners without having to be asked first. Mentors who have chosen not to take an active role may not have as much time available to help learners. Learners will often have to ask specifically for help from mentors who have chosen, for whatever reasons, not to take an active role.

Mentors should identify what courses and/or what subjects they are willing to help learners with, by using userboxes on their user page.

Research Mentor
A research mentor is a person who helps and guides Wikiversity participants in their research goals. Mentors help researchers form academic connections in their field of research, offer insight and advice in doing research, and provide feedback to help participants improve the quality of their research.

Content Development Mentor
A content development mentor is a person who helps and guides Wikiversity participants with editing and contributing content. Mentors may be able to help with the wiki markup language for example. Mentors may provide feedback or constructive criticism on your talk page about your editing. This role encompasses the role of a beta reader in nonfiction or fiction writing, and also includes collaborative editing.

WikiEducator hosts a very well-organized content development mentorship program called Learning4Content. It includes regular online courses on the wiki markup language, resources for self study, and levels of certification ranging from WikiApprentice to WikiMaster.

Custodian Mentor
A custodian mentor is a custodian who helps guide and oversees new custodians during their probationary period. Mentors offer advice and feedback to help new custodians understand what the role of a custodian is and what the community's expectations are, or in other words how to be a good custodian. Mentors decide whether or not to recommend probationary custodians for permanent custodianship.

Mentors Gallery
These Userboxes are for people who are interested in becoming mentors in specific fields. By all means, please create new Userboxes if your areas of interest are not represented here! Instructions for creating new Userboxes are at Wikipedia's Userbox Maker page.