Wikiversity talk:Developing Wikiversity through action research/About

"repository of learning materials" - Why?
I would like to discuss about the following statement:

"Wikiversity is a repository of learning materials, a resource for self-study, a space for collaboration, a space in which to learn collaboratively, a space to explore about learning, a space to learn about teaching, etc. So, how does Wikiversity do all this - "how" in the sense of "by what means" - and, crucially, "by what values"

Why should Wikiversity be a “repository of learning materials”, when the (on and offline) world is already full of create learning materials?

I would even claim that the other wikimedia projects are already building the greatest ever “repository of learning materials”. Why should we replicate this in the Wikiversity project?

The other objectives, such as “resource for self-study” and “a space in which to learn collaboratively” sounds much more reasonable for me.

When doing (serious) self-study reading the learning material is often not enough. You need to set objectives, evaluate your own learning, check and correct if you are no more in a right track etc. In all this the Wikiversity could offer a lot of help, even if the actual materials would be in the “wikimedia library”.

The idea of having a collaborative learning space is even more exciting. This would ask people to organize real study circles or course with schedule, syllabus, objectives, registration, evaluation etc. This is something I am interested in to see more on Wikiversity.

--Teemu 22:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Teemu that Wikiversity should not replicate the good work done at Wikipedia and other sister-projects. Our niche, in my view is to provide a place to organize groups of learners, teachers, enthusiasts, etc. The idea of building a Learning community, I think is our definative objective. CQ 19:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I very much agree that Wikiversity's place is to prompt learning, hopefully collaborative learning. However, I would say that learning materials are more than textbooks and encyclopedia articles - they are about framing objectives, setting questions, undertaking tasks and activities. I don't think there's a surplus in the world of learning materials - therefore, I don't see a problem with us creating more free learning materials, provided they are not duplicating the content of other Wikimedia projects. (Maybe there's a question in here of whether there is a redundant split between projects like Wikiversity and Wikibooks?) In any case, I would also like to see more people actually engaged in active learning within Wikiversity - something that might be simply hard to actually track (because it takes place outside wikiversity.org), or which might not be much present. I'd like to be able to differentiate between these options, and to determine why each one is the case. Cormaggio talk 10:45, 17 April 2007 (UTC)