Wikiversity talk:Problems I have encountered

For simplicity of presentation on the "problems" page, I am starting discussion about each story here. Cormaggio talk 10:53, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Pigeonholing
"Most wiki projects there is one page on one topic and people who want to work on that topic have to work together, thus NPOV and dispute resolution. Here you don't get that effect, meaning that projects rely more on advertising and less on the notability of the topic." >>> Do you mean here that you would prefer people to work on one page about a given subject? How would this be managed when you have differing pedagogical perspectives? I would like to encourage collaboration, but I wouldn't like to force people into a particular view of a subject if their perspective is different. How do you (or anyone) see the potential for collaboration without compromising individual pedagogical freedom? It's an interesting question! "Also, bureaucracy is slow if people assume there should be one (extension approval committee) when in fact such a bureaucracy doesn't exist." >>> I'm not sure if I understand this - what bureaucracies are you saying we should have or improve upon? Are these issues (like extensions) not community issues? Or should we delegate certain decisions to specific people/groups? Incidentally, what extensions do you want to approve (and where did you originally request it)? Cormaggio talk 10:53, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The quiz extension finally got approved by someone somewhere. I had no idea where to take it, as apparently they wanted approval from someone somewhere.--Rayc 00:07, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, I thought all this kind of stuff was organised on the MediaWiki wiki. Perhaps McCormack might help us here... Cormaggio talk 00:13, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Film school
Firstly, I'd like to say thanks Robert for such a clear picture of problems you've encountered. On software limitations, I'd like to be able to draw up a clear set of requirements that we need in order to build and organise a set of learning materials into a course. Your experiences are very clear, but I'd like to translate them into a wishlist that we can present to a developer (or group of developers) in order to brainstorm and develop a solution. Part of my frustration (and I think others' too) is that we don't seem to have an interested individual or group within the developer community who are monitoring the problems in Wikiversity. However, I do know that there most definitely are developers who are very interested in Wikiversity, so if we could put together a wishlist backed up by stories such as this one, we could have a good chance of doing something about it. I know there is currently thinking about rewriting Mediawiki to incorporate various (including educational) needs - some details at: Wikieducator.

On social issues of students not wanting to contribute, that is something that requires a range of solutions, like education, making the space as welcoming as possible, perhaps making contributing a mandatory part of participating in the course, as well as solutions like you have already found. However, I'm not sure if I understand your feeling that: "the difference between my content (with the formal student/teacher relationship with very rigid lessons) and the other content of Wikiversity is turning off some students." What is the problem here? Is it that you feel the students can get too easily distracted? How do you envisage that being addressed?

Finally, on a business model, there is nothing wrong or taboo about trying to make money out of the work you put into Wikiversity. That is why we exclude the NC licence - the opportunity to use content in a commercial venture must exist. There is thinking on how to fit a payment model into Wikiversity - some of this is at: Wikiversity NPC, and Teemu Leinonen has posted about this to his blog. It'd be interesting to pursue this discussion to make Wikiversity perhaps more viable and/or attractive to a wider range of educators. Cormaggio talk 10:53, 18 April 2007 (UTC)