Wikiversity talk:Some ideas about Wikiversity

search up mitcourseware (http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb), see if you can use their stuff.


 * That link seems to be broken. Andrewa 17:02, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Working now. Andrewa 13:21, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Suggestion : provide not only sources, but source analysis for texts. For example, "John Doe wrote in his History of America, that George Washington chopped down a peach tree, but John Doe was not alive to see this and provided no eyewitness accounts"... even if eyewitness, discuss possible motivations for reporting untruths. For example, a history of say, Iraq, might note that some of the people that came over to the US and told the administration how horrible he was were working on separatist movements in that country, and in any other country that would be considered a bias... Exitil@aol.com. 205.188.116.23 15:00, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is taking a good direction. The real thing that I feel is needed is a rigorous section dealing with proofs to theorums, with the steps and assumptions involved. Some of the pages have excellent proofs, while others are sorely lacking. To me this seems a weak point of Wikipedia/versity. No one much likes proofs, however they are the basis for math. I am a university student, and able to contribute somthing (i will send up proofs of theorums that i have to do for class for studying)

I am greatly intersted in the potential of the Wikiversity project to be used by parents to tutor their children (in addition to the Wikiversity's stated goals). I am not sure how the Wikiversity project aims to approach child learning; but I think a collection of learning excercises, perhaps in level appropriate wikibooks, would be an enormous helps to parents like myself. Parents (and maybe educators) can benefit from books/courses on phonetic reading, basic math, writing, music, etc.


 * I think, as I believe most of users, that your idea is wonderful and it has been already spoken. Of course, if there is place for high qualified studies at the wikiversity, there should be also place for another levels. I encourage you to begin such a task creating a new page in the "Wikiversity" with such a goal. ¿Could the name be something like "Wikischool" ...? By the way, there is an open discussion about Wikiversity in the talk page of wikiversity, if you wish, you may place the next comments there so they are unified and easier to consult. --Javier Carro 23:33, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'm interested too. Don't come here often, but i'm in the Wikipedia and I work for a university as a programmer for a learning environment called Dokeos (GNU GPL, ) -- Roan

Heck yeah, this is a great idea! It would fill a major gap on the Internet: examples and tutorials can be found aplenty for many subjects, but actual instructional courses are very few, and usually of limited scope. One-dimensional Tangent 16:15, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I guess Wikiversity is to fill in a space somewhere between Wikibooks and a conventional university. There are plenty of texts on the web and in libraries, and so the Wikiversity should not be duplicating by producing even more texts - if you want to produce a text, Wikibooks may be the place for you. Already, however, I see that we could be slipping into this trap. Perhaps we should be duplicating is some of the functions of a conventional university, but making this more accessible. So what do conventional universities do?

Firstly they provide the opportunity for discourse. There is a whole hierarchy starting from the informal ephemeral chat in the coffee bar to tutorials, lectures, the writing of student essays and academic papers and books. Then they provide support and encouragement, and again this can range from an informal 'thank you' in the course of a discussion to a formal conferring of a degree. Occasionally universities issue threats, but these should be avoided where possible - positive encouragement is usually the best way to keep people motivated. Many of these things may already exist on the net through irc and newsgroups and so on, but perhaps in a disjointed manner.

Then universities provide the opportunity for research. This can just mean more talking and writing. But it can also mean doing experiments. How much of this we should be doing? And when should we start doing it?

What level should Wikiversity be aimed at? Should it deal with knowledge at university level? Or should it be more inclusive than that. I looked at the mathematics pages, and there seems to be something for everyone there, from learning to count to postgraduate level. I think such comprehensiveness is stimulating, as it offers the opportunity for people somewhere in the middle to both teach and learn at the same time. --publunch 12:52, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Fine, but research is problematic. There may be an influx of cranks posing material as "research", which can be hard to justify it's existence. A seperate project for research may be appropriate. Dysprosia 01:12, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * OK, I think we've got plenty of other things to do before we start doing 'Research'.--publunch 11:16, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I noticed that someone has started using the philosophy department as a message board. Well, I think this kind of communication is VERY IMPORTANT. I think we need proper departmental message boards, and perhaps some central message boards for admin. I think this needs to be done fairly soon. How quickly can the technical people get this sort of thing done? --publunch 11:16, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * We already have the Staff lounge, and if it's important to have a seperate page for Wikiversity, then one has only to make one - you don't have to be a "technical person", just make a new page. To add something under "philosophy" may not be appropriate. Dysprosia 13:04, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think this is an excellent idea and has the potential to work well. It would be an idea to look at having "online" classrooms in IRC channels, being an experienced user of IRC I can say that it's easy to use: you can paste links in the channel (for learning purposes), everyone can click on the link there and then, and the discussion about the link takes place in real time. Online tutorials and exercises can be done this way, you have instant access to the teacher in the IRC channel.

The course content would be extremely flexible and easily modifed (pending review and approval, but the process could be decided in weeks not months). Having a Wikiversity would bring people from around the globe together in the spirit of learning and discourse. The course lengths could vary and initially it might be an idea to aim for short courses as a trial to see how they work out. It would be interesting how these courses would be advertised. There would be issues about if a qualification from Wikiversity is recognised anywhere, hence my earlier comment about conducting short courses as a trial period, we can get feedback from the "students" and teachers, look if the the infrastructure is working, if not, how to improve it etc. These are some initial thoughts and comments, I'll check back and see what people think. Rjwd 05:25, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

How is this idea different from Wikibooks? How will the courses not just devolve back into a second Wikibooks? Also, Wikibooks is not exactly thriving, do we really need to take away people from the project just yet? I personally believe that our most powerful efforts should be to get Wikibooks up to the level we would consider good, with regular traffic, and then try this idea. The other problem I see is that because of the limitations of the software, Wikiversity would always fall tragically short of the far-sighted vision of a classrooom-like atmosphere. While the software could be change, we must ask ourselves, is this really necessary? What will it actually contribute to the area of online education and how will it not just be Wikibooks 2 (i.e. not just textbooks in another form and name)?--Naryathegreat 17:43, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Accreditation
I think we need to make a painful decision about whether Wikiversity is to recognise (note I didn't say offer) any form of accreditation.

This has come up before in a number of forums and a number of Wikimedia projects, and there's a deep-seated philosophical objection to the idea from many contributors. But accreditation is an essential part of University life. The vast majority of the students in a University are candidates for some sort of degree, and the vast majority of their teachers have degrees in relevant areas.

Currently, the module page is inconsistent on this, and I'm in no hurry to fix this conflict. It explicitly says The Wikiversity project IS NOT:... An attempt at accreditation. But later, there's a suggestion of levels of degree, from Bachelors to WhD (which I may nickname a Woctorate).

There seem to be two issue here, that of internal accreditation and that of external accreditation. In fact these are the same. Wikimedia is famous enough for internal accreditations to carry external prestige, and external accreditations are going to carry some weight in any internal system however democratic it is planned to be.

I'm of two minds. At the WhD level there will need to be refereeing, it's a research degree, and also publication of the thesis. Once we have such a system, I can see all sorts of lesser research projects being suggested, and there's a case for this.

The essence of a University is its cadre of people who are each involved in both teaching and research, the theory being that teaching is an excellent way for the teachers themselves to learn (it keeps you honest with yourself). This cadre is heirarchical, with the college of PhDs at the apex. It's this college which takes ultimate responsibility for endorsing new members by passing their PhDs.

As I said above, I'm in no hurry to resolve this, but I think it does need some explicit discussion. Andrewa 18:04, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is a totaly cool idea. Im in :) But do we have to say "Bachelors Degree" and "Masters Degree", whats that? -a
 * I'm fine with accreditation as long as they are given for recognition and honor, and not to signify an understanding of material or a certain topic; id est laureation. Wikiversity should, in my mind, resemble free study. Accreditation opposes this by being used--maybe unintentionally--as a form of restriction.

Assessment, Appraisal, Criticism and Feedback
Surely if accreditation is a meaningful goal - the discussion will have to be had, about the need to assess learning progress.

Serious students with a desire to learn always appreciate measured feedback (assessment) of their individual achievement. If this is done at appropriate intervals throughout a learning period it substantially assists learning development. This gives them encouragement and a framework of guidance. I have always looked at this in terms of Vygotsky's ‘zone of proximal development’ theories in my real world experience of Art & Design project based higher education. Students are capable of objectively assessing the achievement of themselves and their peers maturely. This takes practice and guidance in establishing a shared understanding of meaningful criteria to which they feel an individually committed ownership. Under these circumstances real synergy and personal development takes place far in advance of what the participants may have imagined was possible - ‘the joy of learning’. I have only the haziest notions of how we might provide structured encouragement to students pursuing these programmes conscientiously. But it should be relatively easy to collect evidence of engagement with the programme which can be appraised or assessed by self, peers or subject experts. Online seminar discussions of the material. Submitted work circulated and critically commented. Even a wiki archive of previous work - what a great resource - which can act as a benchmark and stimulus to each new generation of students.

I may add here that I am convinced believer in combinations of normative & formative feedback - assessment is feedback about achievement - no more no less. There are always two indices at work although even professional teachers don't always explicitly separate them out properly. Formative feedback is about helping the student define where they are, and what they have to do to reach their educational goals. And then how well they as individuals have done in progressing towards those goals - how much achievment and for how much effort [There is no comparison with others implicit in this] and it appears transparent, fair and helpful to the student when based on specific agreed criteria. This is educational hard work (the old tutorial).

Then there is the more normative appraisal (much maligned) of comparison to values external to the student. The achievement of their peers in competition, in collaboration, and measuring of achievement against ‘standards’ whether universal set tests, levels of professional competence, peer acclaim or whatever. Many individuals can push themselves to excel when guided towards picking meaningful external standards which they can measure their achievments against. This is powerful stuff but can also be educationally dangerous - creating disincentives, discouragement and unjustifed perceptions of failure, when misapplied, or misdirected. But ultimately for higher level work - we clamour for genuine positive peer review and criticism and thrive on it when our development is mature.

This surely is one of the time-honoured roles of the university in society. To be the forum for intelligent, measured, directed criticism feedback, appraisal and assessment of achievement and progress. Sounds like a wikiusp.

--TimMartin 21:20, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

School of Creative Writing and Literature Studies
Would someone mind looking over what I have done at the School of Creative Writing and Literature Studies? I'm not getting much from others in the school, so if somebody from the outside could take a look that would be great. I'm afraid of changing too much as I don't want to ruin the work of others. However, I think there needs to be better organization and I've reflected that as best as I can thus far. Also, I think I would like to change the name around from the current to "School of Literature Studies and Creative Writing". Thanks folks --Atrivedi 05:51, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Atrivedi. I'm new to the Wikiversity movement, but I've got a lot of ideas on how to restructure the School. First off, I want to say that I don't know how much of the work done to the page is yours so I don't want to offend when I say I think we should cut the majority of the courses from the page. This may seem counterintuitive, but I think we should let the school take shape organically as people become involved. Why don't we restructure the school into three or four departments: creative writing, technical (professional writing), literature, and rhetoric and composition. Then, why don't we only start to develop courses that we can currently support. We need to keep in mind that Wikiversity is not a traditional university. It's being conducted in a completely different medium, and it isn't bogged down by the rules and traditions of a formal university. Let's think of a new way to come at this. Also, let's remember that we should focus our courses around what learners are looking for. Let's start small and grow from there. Starting from a blank slate might be a good idea. I've been talking to user JustinLillich a little about this, and he seems open to the idea of a restructured school. What do you think? Thanks. -- Ztheday 17 Feb 2005
 * Continued

School of Classics
I really think a School of Classics would be nice. ancient Roman & Greek authors, architecture, philosophy and the like would be presented.


 * I agree that a School of Classics would be a great idea!  I think that eventually, if people ever come back and start caring again about this project (maybe it has moved or died and I'm just behind), there will definetly be interdisciplinary schools, etc.  Right now, in working on the School of Creative Writing and Literature Studies (not my name for it, someone else's), I've added some discussions on the most classic works (epic poems, etc.) but would gladly give them up in favor of the Classics department. --Atrivedi 21:05, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia/Wikiversity
When possible might it be acceptable to use wikipedia to defin certain topics or people?

Open-source Online Classroom Program
Might this product be useful to WikiUniversity? It's called Moodle. I found it during a websearch one day.

Here is what the Moodle homepage says, "Moodle is a course management system designed to help educators who want to create quality online courses. The software is used all over the world by universities, schools, companies and independent teachers. Moodle is open source and completely free to use."

URLs: http://moodle.org/ and http://moodle.com --balTHOMore

Bootstrapping Wikivarsity
Really Cool stuff :)

I have some suggestions for Bootstrapping the Wikivarsity without hurting Wikibooks. My suggestion is:
 * Use Wiki Contributions across Wikimedia projects like Wikipedia,Wiktionary,Wikibooks etc. as a measure of feedback and grading over a long duration which would lead to Diplomas,Degrees and Woktorates.
 * The Wikivarsity would consist of a ring of Admins or maybe Woktorates or both at the top with many layers upto the bottom similar to what has been suggested by Andrewa. Creation of this inital pyramid is discussed later...
 * Each layer would assign subtasks (requests for contributions to Wikis,Overall guidelines,etc) to lower layers.
 * The contributions of the lower layers would be judged by the higher layers for usefulness, accuracy, grasp of subject matter, breadth and depth of knowledge etc.
 * At any point of time whenever the candidate thinks he has contributed enough to prove that he deserves the degree/certification, he has to create a summary of all his contributions on his User Page and build a case to justify that he deserves certification. Demanding certification could be as simple as adding a specific Wiki Tag to ones own user page.
 * Anyone(collaborators,evaluators,competitors) can make comments about the value,authenticity,originality,plagiarism of the contrbutions on the discussion page in standard wiki style.
 * Out of all the enrolled candidates, those who satisfy certain prescribed criteria by the evaluators would be chosen for grant of the certificates/degrees/diplomas. Initially Jimbo Wales could play a deciding factor and gradually, when the process becomes widespread can be decentralised.

Note: Making contributions to Wikis is a highly educative process in itself and if the candidate makes wiki contributions in a sufficiently diverse set of areas in his chosen field of study and evolves it systematically, he can be guaranteed to be of a certain caliber.

SudarshanP 12:26, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Some Initial Courses that could be offered

 * WikiMedia Certified Translation Professional: One of the best way to learn and digest a new language would be to translate English Wikis/Wikibooks etc into the traget language and possibly vice versa. Fulfilment criteria, translate n thouasand sentenses on Wikipedia with a minimum quality. Grades will be based on quality of translation. Also Barnstars for translation could improve grades.
 * WikiMedia Certified Technical Translator: Same as above. But will involve very specialised topics needing some fair subject knowledge as well.
 * WikiMedia Certified Sports Reporter: Cover Sports events for Wikipedia
 * WikiMedia Certified Scientific Writer: Nurture Scientific articles in Wikipedia.
 * WikiMedia Certified Educator:
 * WikiMedia Certified Recipie Writer
 * Add zillions more here...

These would be short term courses and very specific in nature. As time passes more advanced long term and generic courses could be created. These courses would help the individual to grow intellectually while at the same contributing massive amount of content to the wikis.

Maybe even wiki admins etc could opt for degrees and obtain a compact and demonstrable artifact and a little more spice to the resume.

It would serve as an endorsement of the value of their time spent on Wikipedia, so that he/she does not have to have to go to an employer and say, I edited a bazillion articles on wikipedia can u please have a look at each one of them and figure out how good I am. Instead he could say, I am a Certified Wikimedia this that etc. Of cource the certifications will have build a brand for themselves...

SudarshanP 12:26, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

An alternative approach
Up until now it seems to me we've been focussing on building a University as it currently exists outside the WWW, but using a Wiki to do it.

I'd like to think a bit about doing something more radical. Green hat.

It seems to me that what a University does is teach. Everything else comes from this, including the granting of degrees. The degree is a licence to teach, and in the case of higher degrees, to award these licences.

So, I'd like to propose we focus on teaching at the outset. Set up some mechanism where those willing to teach can instruct those eager to study. No more, no less.

Then see what comes out of it. It's hard sometimes to predict what the WWW will do with an idea like this (just ask Micro$oft}. But whatever accreditations we eventually offer, I'd like to see them offered because they help the teaching, and I think that means in the light of our experience doing the teaching. This isn't an entirely new thought now that I examine it, I've raised before the question of    external and internal accreditation. So, again I've come around to thinking that the internal accreditation comes first. The difference is, I now want to see the teaching start before even going too far thinking about even internal accreditation.

One of the teaching tools should be Wikibooks, in fact many and perhaps even all of the teaching tools can be hosted in Wikibooks. Let's not set up anything that duplicates what we already have. On the other hand, Wikibooks has a clear and important goal and focus. I think Wikiversity has a different goal and focus, which we are still developing. Perhaps in time Wikibooks will become the Wikiversity library, just as any university library has a life of its own and serves both the registered students of the university and also others who come to learn without registering in a formal course. (Or at least that's how it works in Australia.)

That doesn't mean we necessarily need to register Wikiversity students, far from it. The Wikiversity tools and processes should be available to unregistered and not logged in users to the maximum practical, just as editing privileges in Wikipedia are made generally available. That's an important part of our ethos and tradition.

It doesn't even mean we need to register teachers! Perhaps even being a registered teacher, and having some greater priviledges than an anonymous teacher, is our first degree. Let's not call it a degree for the moment, but it may become one.

My alma mater, UNE, once offered a degree called Bachelor of Literature which was a second degree and took the place of an honours year for external students, who were not able to do the normal honours year because of their restricted subject choices as undergraduates. They have subsequently renamed this as a Master's degree, to fall more in line with other Universities, and as part of this they retrospectively awarded Master's degrees to all holders of the Bachelor of Literature. So we don't need to get it right at the start, although we should if we can. If we later decide to award retrospective degrees, there are precedents for this.

Questions:

What tools do we need?

How do you best use a Wiki for teaching?

Who would like to start? In what subjects?

Because, as soon as we have at one student and one teacher in some subject, we can get started. They can then tell us what tools they need.

Perhaps the first tool we need is a way for students and teachers to meet. I'll start that right here. I'm interested in learning Pure Mathematics (in which I have a Bachelor's degree already), especially Model Theory and Nonstandard Analysis, and Theology.

I'm a little more reserved about what I could teach. Drumming and stage lighting are two things I already do teach, but I'm not all that excited about doing either on the web. There are some excellent drumming sites already, as well. My highest academic qualifications are in Mathematical Logic, but that's a while ago, and possibly Audit methodology and practice in which I presented some internationally published papers and delivered a few guest lectures. Obviously elementary mathematics is another thing I could teach; Again there are some excellent Mathematics sites already. I have also taught various computing subjects at elementary level. Perhaps we could include links to these drumming and maths sites in our tools. I'm not sure I would want to put time into teaching elementary mathematics on the web. I know something about sailing, it having been a long and continuing interest, and have taught elementary sound engineering. Finally, having worked with it I'm knowledgable in some aspects of nuclear energy and could teach it at a layman's level, but I'm a bit fearful that many of those who want to learn in this area will find that some of what they think they already know I think is false.

There are probably other things I've forgotten.

I'm not sure how to best start teaching any of those on the web, but if anyone is interested in learning I'm interested in having a go, or at least talking about it. A bit fearful about what I might get into, but interested. It would need to be understood that the learning may be slow at first as we work out how to do it, and that working it out is at this stage an important part of the process.

And we may well have better teachers.

Enough for now I think. Other ideas? Andrewa 15:29, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Response to Andrewa
What I agree with:
 * I totally agree with you that the primary focus of the Wikivarsity is (or should be) Teaching/Learning itself and not distribution of degrees.
 * Great. Andrewa 23:37, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * What tools do we need? I would say we definitely need tools, but don't overinvent. The most powerful tool is the Wikipedia itself. Not in the sense of how much knowledge is already there, but in the sense of how much knowledge is acquired in the process of creation of wiki content.
 * Agree with all of this. Well put. Andrewa 23:37, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Let me give an example. I have some background in cryptography. Say you are totally new. Now suppose, you want to learn and I want to teach... Both of us start writing a wikibook about cryptography. You would start pulling out info about the topic from various sources and I would keep overseeing your activities, giving you suggestions and confirm through the discussion pages that you really undertstand what you are creating and your job is not a copy paste job. For very high interaction we could occasionally use IRC. I could focus on your interpretation of the naunces and confirm that your understanding is right. Now suppose, I wanted to teach cryptography to my next student. I would ask him to go through the book you have created and empower him (through discussion) to find all mistakes you have created. As time passes, the book becomes too good to be rectified. Then we could start a new book or fork the book and start off with something. In short the activity of creating a wiki with partial knowledge is a much richer experience than blindly reading online reference material which what a Wikibook is.


 * There's a lot here and I like the ideas and vision very much. But one of the characteristics of good ideas is that most of them don't work. Certainly worth taking further, by discussion or having a go or both. Andrewa 23:37, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What I disagree with:
 * However I am still of the opinion that some form of certification from Wikipedia would act as a strong motivator for systematic and long term involvement with the subject than plain curiosity. Otherwise I bet that most excitement could easily fizzle away in the first few weeks and the excitement would degenerate. Things should have a beginning, and an end. At the end one shold be able to say I finished doing this.
 * I agree, see Referees on the Meta or User:Andrewa/Wikipedia approval mechanism on English Wikipedia for some of my ideas on Wiki-based approval mechanisms which would IMO be applicable here too. Note the Meta article has several authors not just me, and is one of many on the general subject, all of them I think accessible by at most two wikilinks in succession (wikijumps?) from this page. I didn't mean to say or imply that certification was not a good thing, I think it is, both for material and contributors. It seems to be a dead duck on Wikipedia itself, however. People like the anarchy, and react strongly against any suggestion of any form of approval mechanism there. Andrewa 23:37, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I do not agree that the sole purpose of a degree is to prove that one can teach. In many situations, the degree is an endorsement of capability in a vague sense. We go to qualified doctors, engineers,lawyers etc. as degrees provides a lowest common denominator.
 * Agree. I didn't mean to say or imply that the sole purpose of a degree was as a teaching qualification. Andrewa 23:37, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * While an RHCE or MCSE or CCNA can prove to be a moron, Many people would prefer to deal with a certified person than one who does not have one and especially if he is not too knowledgeable about the subject and I doesn't want to spend ages figuring out the unknown person's true potential.
 * Again, agree. Andrewa 23:37, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Somethings I am prepared to teach though the "Wikibook creation by the student" methodology I described above
 * How the hell does a computer work?
 * Elementary Physics.
 * Digital Electronics.
 * Cryptography beyond the over-simplified notion of transforming a message into something that can be read only by a person with whom you already share a secret.
 * Nanotechnology for Dummies.
 * Computer Networks

Some Wiki books I want to create as a student
 * Relativity for Dummies.
 * Quantum Mechanics for Dummies.
 * All the math about Photogrammetry
 * Close Range Digital Photogrammetry aided by the use of Artificial intelligence.

Any takers?

SudarshanP 05:05, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I can probably help with the relativity and cryptography Wikibooks, and I'm interested in other aspects of photogrammetry, see my (old) web page on fisheye perspective. Andrewa 23:37, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

SudarshanP 02:35, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Cool!!!, I guess we suit each other fairly well. And guess even our ideas about wikiversity match in most ways... So I guess we can probably start on Relativity and Cryptography. U can be my mentor for Relativity and I can be your mentor for Cryptography. We will initially write two wiki books abt these topics... let us see how things go. As time passes, guess we could branch out into more topics. By the way sometimes I wonder if other guys on Wikibooks or Wikiversity would find our approach tolerable. The last thing I want in the world is writing half a book and realise these guys have begun to spray vfds all over the place.

The next steps
Starting on the Relativity and Cryptography texts is certainly one way forward. Two problems:


 * I haven't offered to teach Relativity. I just said I could help you write a text. You may well be ahead of me in your understanding, which may not be a problem in this environment (I'm serious, there are some radical possibilities here). But I think we need to investigate this a bit.
 * I haven't asked to learn Cryptography either! My contributions to the field to date have been some short articles on public-key systems in EDPACS, a professional newsletter of computer security and audit, back in the days when using RSA for encryption and digital signatures was a new idea.

Sorry if that's a bit of cold water. I agree that the way to start is to start. But neither of these would be high priority projects for me just now, so I'm concerned I won't do them justice. Andrewa 18:07, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Classification
I'd like to think a bit about how we might efficiently match up students and teachers, assuming we attract a few more someday. One question is classification of studies. A library classification system might help here, but both Library of Congress and Dewey seem to require registration and payment to use the finer levels, as would be necessary. Universal Decimal Classification looks worth a look for this and other reasons. Andrewa 18:07, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I also had a quick look at Bliss, but it seems rather esoteric! Andrewa 18:29, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The Scope of Wikiversity
I added a new section at the beginning and summarized some of what I read on that topic, moved other material to the History section, and changed the section names a bit.

I'm also creating an archive page for some of the 'visions' which I think are good, but perhaps too much like random lists to solicit much in the way of excitement or contribution. I tried to summarize this material, but y'all may want to look through the archive and reconstitute more of it.

Apologies if I've done any of this poorly-- I am fairly new to Wikipedia etiquette.

/archive of vision statements

JoeEdelman 00:45, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The new idea about the structured information storage
I would like to represent my idea about the structured information storage based on Wiki technology that, I think, can be used as an underlying tool for such an educational project as Wikiversity. It seems that Wikiversity for a time being cannot determine which way to go. The older ways of education seems to be ineffective and, as it is said, to create a complete course is much more difficult than to create an article in Wikipedia. My proposition is to create first the building blocks of knowledge (that I call the Pieces of Knowledge - POK) and then, using nesting create larger blocks out of these basic blocks, which in turn will be the modules of yet larger pieces of knowledge - lessons, courses, books, etc. I propose a systematic approach to this system called Odzilla. Please, take a look. Maybe it can boost a process in some way. --Catpad 07:10, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Purpose
Wikiversity appears to be a good idea, yet at the moment it's entirely too vague to be of any use. The goal, it appears, is to provide a free alternative to current universities, in the Wikimedia style. To further describe what Wikiversity should do, then, one must first examine what a "real" university provides, and what wikimedia as a whole does not currently provide. There are several main items in this.

1. Universities provide educational material.

2. Universities provide the organization of said material.

3. Universities provide instructors to explain the material, in the event that a person does not understand something completely.

4. Universities provide the promise that the instructors are competent enough to present and explain the material.

5. Universities provide certifications and transcripts which provide the promise to others that a holder of such a certification is competent in that area.

Wikimedia already provides (1), and through wikibooks provides (2). What wikimedia does not currently provide are (3), (4), and (5). These, then, are what people working on wikiversity should examine most closely, so that they might find practical solutions to the issues.

(3) is possibly the most difficult obstacle, in that it requires the active and frequent participation of not only the students in a course, but the instructor as well. The instructor needs some way of answering students' questions, and students likewise need a method of asking them. Perhaps a daily discussion page could be created, where each day of a course has its own page on which students and instructors could communicate. The main problem with this is the lack of real-time communication, which would slow the process severely. Some alternatives, or supplements perhaps, might be IRC chatrooms, etc. These provide real-time communication quite well.

The problem with using an IRC chatroom is simply the integration of this with wikiversity, and wikimedia. This may be easily accomplished provided that the people of wikimedia are willing to accept the integration of something so deviant from its traditional ways of presenting information. As a side note, multiple instructors for one course could collaborate to teach it - this would be very helpful in that real-time instructing (if provided) does tend to take quite a bit of a person's personal time away, with no monetary compensation. Even in the event that real-time communication were not implemented, more instructors working on a project would still help it to progress smoothly and efficiently.

(4) is an interesting task to accomplish, as it seems contradictory to the spirit of wikimedia as a whole. Certifications are looked down upon - at least in the sense that most are opposed to them being necessary for any part of wikimedia, as this would restrict the participants to those with degrees, rather than those with knowledge or potential for useful contribution. Some system needs to be devised in order to confirm the competence of a person to teach a course.

This problem may be self-correcting in that a person may be simply asked for their credentials; those who are satisfied with these credentials are free to take the course, while those who are not satisfied will avoid it, in favor of other teaching/learning methods. This would eliminate the need for restriction, with the only stipulation being that credentials are asked to be displayed. These credentials would also need some sort of verification, i.e. verification that the person is who he says he is, and that he has the credentials he says he has (in the event of formal credentials like degrees). In the case of informal credentials, no verification should be necessary.

(5) is another difficult problem to solve, as it requires some way of verifying that a person truly knows what he is certified to know. Tests are the most obvious and easy way to do this - but then, it is difficult to determine whether a person has done this test himself. The only feasible way to do this may be to actually have a videorecording of the person taking the test. Perhaps a better solution would be to have thesis papers for certification. This is already quite common in universities, and the person is not restricted from using external resources (in fact, it is encouraged and even required). There is little worry of academic dishonesty, as few people are willing to write an entire thesis paper (quite a task) for another; it is a considerably larger amount of work than simply taking a test for someone. The second aspect to this would be to have the thesis paper (or other means of testing knowledge) reviewed by someone who is recognized as competent enough to declare another to also be competent. In the event that the instructor has verified, recognized credentials, this is not a problem. In the case that he does not, however, there are still solutions available. A "non-accredited" award may be given, and the thesis paper (or other given material) may be archived or otherwise kept, in the hopes that someone with verified and recognized certifications might come along and review the material, thereby changing the award to the "accredited" status.

These are simply a few ideas for bringing the Wikiversity idea to fruition. If these problems can be solved, I believe that the project can begin to progress, and eventually mature into something that is recognized worldwide - whether or not it is seen as equivalent to traditional degrees.


 * I have no serious objection to the dream that it might be possible to create a copy of a conventional university in wiki format. I do think that anyone who is captivated by this particular dream should recognize that just because we can imagine something it does not mean that it makes a great deal of sense. I think it makes more sense to try to imagine a new kind of university, a true wikiversity, that will take advantage of the wiki user interface and the opportunities it provides for education, without trying to replicate all that is less desirable in conventional universities. Also, we need to be realistic about how wikis grow. No matter how seductive they are, grand dreams of creating a new university are meaningless without a way to make those dreams a reality. What we need now is a realistic starting place for wikiversity. I think what is needed now is a small set of what might be called "Wikimedia service courses". These would be natural extensions of existing Wikimedia projects that could become the first pages of wikiversity. These service courses would serve the research needs of existing Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia and Wikinews. Additional information about this practical way of launching wikiversity can be found at Moving Wikiversity forward and the discussion page for that article. --JWSurf 20:10, 17 November 2005 (UTC)