Wikiversity talk:Being educational

Some suggestions
I agree with Historybuff on the Colloquium that we shouldn't delete pages too quickly. Instead, i propose to notify developed courses, learning resources and other activities on the Main Page and to make a portal for these.

I also like to introduce a special category called 'academic level'. An academic level is reached when someone has a phd or is trying to get one and is writing on Wikiversity in his field of knowledge. This would imply that Cormacs texts on learning are of an academic level. I think we should be strict on credentials and have some solid prove that people who pose as an academic actually are an academic.

After all pages have been examined, a department can be founded which will help and stimulate users to create texts which are developed.

I also like to add a category on group activity. In order to establish learning communities, it would be good to show the group activity. People who are interested in group activities probably want someone will respond to a text within two months, preferably even within a day or a week.--Daanschr 10:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I think McCormack's response (about tagging and 'DPLing') covered most of what I'd say to this. Tagging is a useful way of allowing people to see how something can be used and also what other people think of it as a resource. For example, something could be tagged as 'academic' (meaning 'potentially useful in an academic context'); and in the same way material can be tagged 'biased' (just like on Wikipedia), so that people can be made that bit more aware of a debate around the validity of its information (and of course, be able to think for themselves, and to contest the claim of bias). I agree with McCormack that a massive tagging campaign is needed - and count me in - as one of Wikiversity's major flaws so far, IMO, is that it doesn't make clear what audience/needs specific pages are written for. However, I disagree with limiting an academic tag to content by people who have or are studying for a PhD - this strikes me as both completely unrealistic to enforce, and not necessarily useful, since "academic" is a pretty general term anyway. IMO, the more specific we can be the better - if we can have a collection of materials that are tagged with the depth of, for example, 'potentially useful for an undergraduate course in electronic engineering, utilising video and text, and requiring both individual and collaborative work' - I'd be a happy man. ;-) And on group activity - "Dynamic page lists" are a possible tool - we have Help:Dynamic page list, but I suspect you'd be better off looking at their use in the Bloom Clock or Wikimedian Demographics. Cormaggio talk 17:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * A tag for material at a academic level is something for the future if it is ever enforced. It is not something i want to implement at the moment. And the future could give new surprising developments we can't see yet. So, for the moment, i would like to tag material with the same categorization as proposed by you and McCormack (i suppose).Daanschr 19:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I will look at this page that McCormack created in order to determine if everything is okay for me. Afterwards i would like to get started in the evaulation of pages.Daanschr 19:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Why not tag something as potentially of use in an academic context (preferably a specific one) right now - as part of an evaluation project? Or, perhaps you mean academic as somehow indicating "quality"? Cormaggio talk 21:28, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd also just like to voice my objection to any kind of tag that designates whether an author or text has some kind of traditional accreditation from a university; if an individual wants to state his/her external credentials on their user page then so be it, but applying this to potentially collaboratively authored content or a learning project makes no sense. I also think that Wikiversity could be a place where these sorts of hierarchies are somewhat purposefully vague and eroded around the edges a bit so that learners may also become teachers, or experts outside of the traditional accreditation systems can feel welcomed in an environment where the power structures and vectors of control that have solidified in the bricks'n'mortar institutions of learning are not reproduced. Over time we may require some means to start 'tagging' for quality resources -- most wikis do turn to the question of quality after their bursts of content have been acquired, but I'm not sure we're there yet. Countrymike 23:51, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The special interest at the moment to introduce categorization, seems to be that new users can quickly know which learning materials and courses are finished. That way they will not be dissapointed by what we promise.


 * An appeal to an academic level of expertise can be usefull when we regard Wikiversity as a means to learn to know facts. If Wikiversity simply is a way of life, than facts are less important and academic expertise will be of less relevance. I know that many aspects of the academic world don't live up to the ideal of learning who the world works, but there are certain disciplines of which i have a high regard, like physics.
 * Also, i like to have a special part of Wikiversity where a deeper level of understanding of knowledge is appreciated. A deeper level of understanding is acquired when multiple books are being studied. It would be great if we could ever have the people who actually write these books, and thereby shape our world.--Daanschr 11:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Daanschr: I'm not sure what exactly it is we're "promising" but I see where you're coming from in having way to designate some resources as reaching a particular level of completedness. In a way this is what Featured Project is kind of doing so perhaps, as an interim until we develop some kind of rating system similar to the Wikibooks completion thingy, we could at least categorize projects that have appeared as Featured Projects. Countrymike 23:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * With promise, i mean that we have links that can interest people. When they click on these link, they find nothing. So, we can have featured contents, and we need a very clear to see warning on several pages that non-featured resources are can be nearly empty and pointless.--Daanschr 08:12, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Some comments about academic titles
Some of the younger people (i.e. those with less experience of the politics and egos of academia) might be tempted to request tagging of contributors and their contributions by academic title.
 * Bringing titles into WV would necessarily import real-world pecking orders with it, and ultimately the sometimes quite disgusting world of academic politics and egos. There are some great pages on WP which describe the ego-battles of PhD-contributors against each other: "I've got a PhD in the subject - I'm an expert and I know better than you" - "Well so have I and mine's from a better university than yours". It's really happened, and will happen - a lot.
 * One of the things that is special about Wikimedia projects is the option it offers to the great and famous to be anonymous. There are many reasons why they might choose to go along this path. One is that great academics might be worried about their reputation if known to be involved with Wikimedia, so they get involved under a pseudonym. But there are many other reasons too. Of course, a pseudonym requires abandonment of title if checks are done, which means that the "great academic" then has to let smaller fish dance all over them.
 * The frequency of academic title fraud is high. Even real world universities get fooled. WV would be easy pickings.
 * A PhD isn't exactly worth much anyway when it comes to teaching quality. If you look at the career path of an academic - say 3 to 5 years for the PhD, mostly spent researching rather than teaching, and then perhaps 30 years teaching and researching - it should be clear that the real educators among academics are a long way past their PhD - but they don't get any extra "titles" for it. And by the way, the standard of educational methodology isn't generally that high in post-secondary education. A "lower" qualification as a school-teacher might be more valuable to WV, not that I'm in favour of drawing attention to these either.
 * While it's true that edit-countitis is sometimes frowned upon, one should bear in mind that it is nevertheless the best way of judging a contributor. Actions and edits count, not status.
 * --McCormack 13:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I have heard some about egos of academics. I studied at a university myself. I also was victim of a strange event in this regard during my graduation last year. Even though, you have convinced me with your arguments. You are right that i am young, still i don't like the way you handle my age when you try to think of a cause for my actions. There are more respectfull ways of adressing a person.
 * A convincing argument is that academics have to think of their carreer and therefore have an unhealthy urge to defend their viewpoints. In the academic world, the normal way to handle this is to be very critical with what so-called (academic) experts argue.
 * Still, what i do like of the academic world is the level of knowledge on the world. How can we be able to get the quality of knowledge which is normal in many (not all) academic institutions? How is it possible to advance facts?--Daanschr 15:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry about the age thing, Daan. Actually, I didn't mean it negatively at all. Young = enthusiastic, healthy, lots of time to devote to wiki projects, etc! One of the amazing things about the Wikimedia world is that it allows people to contribute regardless of status-based things, and age is just as much a status matter as title. Both are bad things for evaluating the worth of a contributor. Actions and edits count, not status. --McCormack 15:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is right. I was a bit too pointy about age. I hope Wikiversity can be as humane as Wikipedia is. I don't know how Wikiversity will develop.--Daanschr 16:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

A way to support quality can be that people read books and discuss them. Books are a medium which give the most detailed and deepest understanding of a certain topic. A problem arises when academics who write these books come to interphere, but that is something for the future. If there is no appeal to quality, than Wikiversity will be hardly about learning.--Daanschr 16:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

the wiki way?
Back when Wikipedia started there were plenty of people who thought the path to success was to replicate online what happens during the creation of a traditional print encyclopedia. That kind of thinking was wrong and it mostly died with Nupedia. Thousands of people went ahead and invented and discovered new unconventional ways of contributing to Wikipedia....and, of course, many people contribute in rather conventional ways, too. I think diversity is the key to wiki success.....being welcoming to everyone who contributes. The current version of Learning resources strikes me as biased towards conventional thinking about learning resources and how to use a wiki to develop online learning resources....it seems like the equivalent of some early essays at Wikipedia proclaiming that the structured Nupedia approach was the only way to make an online encyclopedia. If your vision of Wikiversity does not extend beyond the current version of Learning resources, that is fine, but you do not turn your limited vision of the wiki way into an excuse to limit the diversity of Wikiversity and its participants. I hope Wikiversity can remain a welcoming place where participants feel free to experiment with new ways to use wiki technology to support online learning. Please do not try to destroy such experiments when they do not meet your vision of a "correctly" structured learning resource. Template:Unencyclopedic suggests that if a Wikiversity learning resource does not conform to the limited vision of Learning resources then a proper course of action is to delete it. I was shocked to find this template and this argument for deletion plastered on Darwinism as religion as part of a religiously-motivated objection to the content of that learning resource. Let's not start using an essay about conventionally-structured learning resources as an excuse to suggest deletion the less structured resources and experiments that exist at Wikiversity. --JWSchmidt 01:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Just a note. I'm not sure if anyone is reading this more than a year later but regardless allow me to agree with the suggestion of allowing for an experimental element to Wikiversity. On the other hand I also simply want to see standard course structures, the kind that am used to, but with the added incredible volume of information found at Wikipedia. I'd be ideal to be able to find both kinds of resources, therefore it'd be ideal to present both. It'd be good to provide a guide to would be instructors on how to implement any new experimental vision and perhaps some theory behind it.Mbrad 04:22, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Please re-read the article and assume good faith
Thank you for your long contribution, JWS. You may have missed the sentences in the introductory part of the resource which place it in context. Nobody ever wrote this resource as a claim to an exclusive definition of resources on an educational wiki. However yes, the article is a revolution against an out-dated and damaging kind of thinking at Wikiversity which doggedly refuses to give anyone any idea of how to even begin to make something educational (note the word "begin"). Many visitors to WV, including the one quoted at the beginning, feel betrayed by the lack of educational vision and the toilet-like quality of some resources at WV. While it is true that some very ambitious and advanced concepts of education have been put forward by other users, until this resource was created, nobody had ever catered for the vast majority of "educational beginners". You cannot both embrace pluralism and attack other approaches at the same time - are you sure you are not yourself biased towards a particular vision and attempting to impose an exclusivity? To me, it is you who wishes to limit our diversity as well as our quality. If you wish to keep your vision of an educational resource, then create a "resource type" for it, alongside all the many other types which real everyday Wikiversity users have in fact been using ever since the project was started. Wikiversity is moving fowards, JWS, and negativity is not what we need. --McCormack 05:19, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

A side-note on JWS's "shock" at the template. For others reading this exchange of opinions, a new visitor was so shocked at a resource which JWS had created that they tagged it as "uncyclopedic" and left a very critical comment. JWS feels that the user should have been prevented from pursuing this course by a refusal of Wikiversity to even supply an "uncyclopedic" tag. My line on this is that we should allow users to pursue justified criticism, including the use of such tags to draw attention to important criticisms. We should be encouraging the quality improvement of resources through discussion, rather than hindering of discussion by denying technical resources such as tags which prominently invite debate. --McCormack 05:19, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

A further note on whether or not this concept of learning excludes the Schmidt-approach
When writing this article, I was setting out both to be as all-embracing and pluralistic as possible, and at the same time to really create a concrete structured vision. It was a difficult act, but I think both goals were achieved to a pretty high degree. Specifically, I also set out to try to understand and embrace the Schmidt-approach, although he was no longer an active Wikiversity contributor at the time. The Schmidt-approach is reflected at a large number of points in the article. Of the ten points extracted for summary at the end, the points about involving learners and immediacy of a learning situation are perhaps those which would permit (quality) Schmidt-resource-types to be identified as learning resources. The Schmidt-principle of experimentation is not included here because this was not an article about experimentation, but elsewhere I have clearly stated that I embrace both experimental and conventional approaches, and at the same time I see a desperate need to assist editors with creating resources of both kinds. I cannot do everything myself, so I will concentrate on introductions to more conventional approaches. Most people who contribute to Wikiversity are in fact trying to use conventional approaches, and if we excluded conventionalism, then we'd have to delete most of Wikiversity. One thing I think we can say about experimental approaches is that "experimental" approaches do not include just "anything and everything, however low the quality might be". A piece of string ground into the dirt does not have educational value and Wikiversity is not a refuse dump for Wikipedia. We should not use the excuse "it's not trash, it's an experiment". Quality experimental approaches, on the contrary, should be tagged and categorised, and drawn together in a Wikiversity equivalent of a Department of Mysteries, where experimental wiki educationalists can better find and discuss them. --McCormack 06:27, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Self-criticism
Re-reading this again, some time later, the thing I dislike most about what I wrote is that the introductory sections have an excessively complex style. They say what needs to be said, but they say it in a complicated way. I don't want to delete them at the current time - but they do need some careful rewriting. --McCormack 16:05, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Comments on above discussion
I apologise for delaying in responding to this discussion - but I offer these thoughts for now.
 * Firstly, I think it's fine - and necessary - to give some clarity and guidance on identifying and evaluating types of learning resources - as this page sets out to do. Furthermore, I think it's possible to give this guidance as a means of critiquing a resource, as opposed to proscribing what a resource should be. This page clearly addresses the former - though it still clearly needs work (eg. in outlining easily understood examples, backed up with pedagogical or other pages if necessary).
 * This page does go slightly further, however; intending to provide some means for determining that a resource is outside of the scope of Wikiversity (eg. would be more appropriate for Wikipedia), and so it does also bend towards proscription. There is therefore a kind of tension between offering a means of critique, and offering, effectively, a criteria for deletion. I would say this tension would be made more workable by giving as much detail as possible about defining and describing resources (how something could provoke learning; how a learning activity could be built around the given resource). It might also be addressed by having another page do this 'scope-based' function - say, Criteria for inclusion, and have this page as simply describing, rather than proscribing.
 * Wikiversity has always had a tension between conventional and novel approaches to education - and it has clearly been set up to do both. I don't think there is an actual disagreement here (above); I simply think this page is temporarily biased, and that it should also deal with resources or activities that are more experimental or experiential in form. McCormack has said he is focusing his energies on more conventional models for now - and that is completely fine. But I do think there needs to be more detail on more experimental models - on which, incidentally, I'd like to have more focused discussion and activity! I'm very interested in continuing this discussion - perhaps on Wikiversity learning model/Discussion group, or elsewhere. McCormack's scepticism towards a 'free for all' attitude to learning resources is palpable, and understandable - how can this be addressed?
 * I also think it's fine to question materials and their models. Do they help in understanding something, and how? Do they do what they say they will (or do they make this explicit at all)? How could they be improved? All of this is to the good. However, I think we should think about how to give this kind of 'feedback' on resources - comments on talk pages are always worthwhile, but, as I've said on Template talk:Unencyclopedic, tagging with certain types of templates can actually be unproductive, and I'd like to discuss ways of giving constructive criticism than a template that says "useless", "uneducational" or similar. (How about reviving Feedback, or creating something like Tagging resources?) I also think JWSchmidt's concern for deleting less structured resources is well-grounded - but, if we accept that questioning resources is 'fair game', this does raise questions like: how can we evaluate whether our experiments are working? How long is a reasonable time to determine whether something is working? How can we improve on experimental resources that don't seem to be working? I don't know what a "Department of Mysteries" is, but I definitely like the idea of having a focused space/community for discussing Wikiversity's more experimental resources/models. I've been trying to initiate this at places like Wikiversity learning model/Discussion group and Building successful learning communities on Wikiversity - these pages are obviously open to editing, but I'm open to new ideas... Cormaggio talk 10:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Proscription versus description
Thanks for your comments, Cormaggio. I keep on coming back to this article and re-reading it to see if I can change it. I usually come away not doing so. Normally I stick to fairly descriptive work with Wikiversity - I don't often venture into prescriptivism. However in this article, I was reacting to user:danthemango's stinging and well-justified comment on the "miserable failure" of Wikiversity to take simple organisational steps to raise the quality of its resources to something acceptable (I think he was talking about the internal or didactic presentation of learning resources). The page isn't about "defining" resources so much as "recognising" them. The difference is that definitions are less pragmatic than recognition criteria. Recognition is something of a halfway house between proscribing and merely describing. Recognition is practical. It is also solution-orientated - i.e. answering the question "what does an author have to do in order to create a resource which escapes user:danthemango's criticism". I think it is difficult to respond to stinging and well-justified criticism of Wikiversity without starting to proscribe or say what we "should" be doing. I think this is why I keep coming away from this page without having changed anything. --McCormack 08:39, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Examples
I'd like to coordinate this page with the above-linked page, which I created in an attempt to document different types of learning resources/activities in Wikiversity, and which could be used to show the various things that exist here, so that people could get a better sense of how to contribute. I'm just reviving it now - help would be appreciated. Cormaggio talk 13:44, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Whoops - I missed that page. To some extent, Help:resource types and featured extend the work you started there. --McCormack 08:24, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Better title?
While I appreciate the good faith action, how is being educational a better title? Thank you. Emesee 05:23, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi. Thanks for the feedback. I thought about this for a long time. The old title was "Learning resources" (observe casing), which was bad for two reasons. Firstly there were casing/number conflicts with other pages. Secondly, the page had ended up not being on the topic of learning resources, but on the topic of "how to recognize educational value in learning resources". I started off by thinking about making a long mouthful of a title (e.g. like Cormac's "developing Wikiversity through action research"), but I don't like these very long titles - it makes the pages difficult to link to. So I tried to think of something short. I agree I'm not a great fan of "being educational" either, but it was the best I could think of. Do you have some alternatives suggestions? --McCormack 06:33, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Alternative suggestions

 * "How to recognize educational value in learning resources"
 * "Recognizing the educational value in learning resources"
 * "Recognizing educational content"
 * "Recognizing educational value"

That all seems reasonable to me. While you seem to be much more familiar with the intention of this page than myself, perhaps "Recognizing the educational value in learning resources" may give more context. Might in some cases though, a little less context ever be desirable, initially? As part of the way the information is presented, might you give a little context to begin with for a purpose? Maybe even just for your mentioned convenience. : ) Emesee 07:00, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * So are you sure you don't have any 2-word or 3-word suggestions? --McCormack 08:14, 15 August 2008 (UTC)