Latest comment: 18 years ago11 comments8 people in discussion
Right now we are using the English Wikipedia logo, and that needs to change ASAP to something else. If there are any suggestions for a interim logo for Wikiversity, that would be appreciated (and no, we are not going to use the U.S. Flag like was done with Wikipedia). --Robert Horning14:08, 15 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I've uploaded the one on the right File:Wiki.png as a temporary logo (I know it's the wrong message and it's crap, but it's better than the Wikipedia one), but I'm trying to get a developer to add it as the logo. Cormaggio14:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
As you may have noticed, I've uploaded the logo at the wrong size - but I can't now re-upload the re-sized image, as apparently you need to have a four-day-old account to do so. As soon as we have an admin, can s/he delete the image, and i'll re-upload the new one? Thanks. Cormaggio14:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
For a logo how about a large magnifying glass on a piece of a computer monitor showing some cryptic math equations or pictographs? Mirwin11:28, 16 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
meta:User:Nightstallion (away for the moment) is good at arranging logo design competitions. I suggest you center it at Meta, similar to the current Wikibooks/Wiktionary discussions there. I don't like the current one, but it's OK for the moment. Dbmag911:56, 16 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
The French, German, and Swedish Wikiversities all have the same logo at present -- which is this nice amalgamated image combining the middle ages, the renaissance, and a modern guy of today. we can either affirm our solidarity with the EU (although Italy doesn't have a logo yet), and use theirs or come up with something equally complex and rich. I like suggesting our affiliation -- albeit distant -- with the medieval university which was a bastion of learning, a refuge and repository of knowledge and an international center for the exchange of ideas in a very chaotic and war-torn world. --Smithgrrl00:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Maybe Wikischolar/Wikilearner or something to that effect? Also, on most of the wikimedia projects, editor and user are interchangable; would scholar/learner be acceptable as well as editor/user?--Digitalme23:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
It's nice. So, wikischolars practice wikinquiry and wikiate together in a wikiwise way, eh? Referring to working the WV site: Editor works for me too. Scholars are editors too.
Wikischolar goes a long way towards setting a good productive initial tone for the site. Perhaps we could use wiklar for short and wiklars for plural. Mirwin19:30, 16 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
wikilar looks sort of like wiki-lier. I think wikischolar is less confusing. Would it work the other way? Wikischo? Wikislar? Wikiscer? Wikishlr? Na, no truncation sound right.--Rayc13:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I like "wikischolar" also! It's funny, it makes people feel smart, and it resonates with the "serious playfulness" of the wiki-projects. --Smithgrrl00:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Heads of Schools and other "titles"
Latest comment: 18 years ago7 comments7 people in discussion
On some of the "department" pages that have been moved from Wikibooks, some users have become self-appointed to become the "dean" or "head of school" for the current content organization at Wikibooks.
While it is an interesting idea that one user is going to take responsibility for the content of a school and act as a moderator, it seems to go against the ideas of Wikiversity:What Wikiversity is not, particularly the issue of confering titles or assuming an office.
I think it is a legitimate point to make that perhaps these positions should be removed in some regard, or at least a debate over how the social organization of Wikibooks will be made. This issue even goes down to those who want to be the "instructor" of a topic. I would defend that an individual's name be attached as an instructor of a course, as there sometimes does need to be somebody acting as the lead to a learning experience. The "expert" who will let you know more about the topic and guide you through.
I think that over time somewhat of a social structure will and should develop. In that sense, Wikiversity may be less of an anarchy as Wikipedia sometimes becomes. For example, I think it would be useful if some direction could be given as to breadth of a course or other formal requirements and that such direction would differ between different schools or departments. Whether titles are conferred should be determined by each department. However, I don't think there's any point in having them as long as there aren't any other people around. -- sebmol?21:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I definitely think "Heads of school" should be eliminated (the title, I mean ;-)), and replaced by something like "facilitator". Wikiversity is for materials that other peopel can use for their own educational ends (teaching or learning) as well as developing learning communities around those subjects. Nowhere does it seem appropriate to be giving ourselves titles like those appropriated from conventional universities. I agree with Seb that we may develop different working practices than other wikis (like Wikipedia), but this, for me, should be developed out of mutual respect. Leadership is there for the taking if anyone wants to drive a portion of Wikiversity forward - and if anyone does not agree with these developments, they should feel free to say so. Cormaggio06:34, 16 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I think all these titles are wholly inappropriate for an egalitarian wiki community, and they should be removed. This was always one of the concerns I had about the name Wikiversity: that it would encourage copying existing models of organization. We can think about trust models to highlight people with particular expertise, but deans and department heads are just silly.--Eloquence09:48, 16 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I agree with Roadrunner and Eloquence. We sure don't want to replicate the power structures of the school and the university as they are commonly practiced and understood. i like the self-appointed contributor box. --Smithgrrl03:21, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I agree that we can do without needless titles except when they reinforce our ability to laugh at ourselves. Perhaps a "barndean" to parallel Wikipedia's "barnstar" -- in our barn some deans may be more equal than others. :-) Eclecticology19:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
16 August 2006
Food for thought
Latest comment: 18 years ago15 comments8 people in discussion
From the Foundation's mailing list: "in the US many people who homeschool do this because they do not like the lack of religion in public schools. How will WV handle the develpoment of science teaching materials for homeschoolers which are based in 'creationism'?" Birgitte SB Wikiversity is going to need both "category:science" and "category:pseudoscience"....and maybe a major learning project designed to make clear the difference. --JWSchmidt00:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Would anyone actually label their educational material as "pseudoscience"? ;-) It's a good question though - we'll need categories (and hopefully also metadata) to help us in this. Maybe some sort of template for the top of a material page indicating what agegroup the material is aimed at and what sort of pedagogical/theoraetical framework it fits into would be useful? Cormaggio06:39, 16 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Doubtful. 8) But can honest religious people demand that their beliefs be called "science"? People who advocate creationism should quite happy to explain that the bible tells how the universe and man were created. I see no reason they would disagree that this is a belief system, not a theory proven by modern empirical evidence. Thus there should be no problem putting the material under appropriate theology or religious links. This material can and should be put under an appropriate area or category and linked to from the appropriate areas in science regarding disputed material such as evolutionary theory. If it is labeled as alternate scientific theory then it should be reasonable to identify upon what basis it is falsifiable. If it is simply belief, faith, and therefore unproven honest people will not insist on calling it science. Likewise it can include information attempting to demonstrate that evolutionary theory is or is not falsifiable in various contexts. I think it should be pretty obvious when dishonest people insist on labeling their opponents with perjorative terms. For example practitioners of Wicca are pretty sensitive about being labeled and lynched by "Christians" with good historical reason. If somebody insists on placing information about the Wiccan religion under the category of Christian Witches then we might suspect a problem exists. Intelligent Design on the other hand should stimulate very interesting discussion! A key I think is not allowing specific POV to label others destructively while attempting to present all reasonable or mainstream views for the participants to evaluate for themselves. Mirwin10:57, 16 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
There are different ways to teach creationism in an NPOV way. It can be a subject of history, especially US history: how did the creationist movement start, who are its leaders, etc.? It can be an interdisciplinary examination from biology and political science, describing the strategies creationists have used to attack science, their propaganda materials, etc. It can be a look at creationism as a mythology, in which case the subject can be divorced from scientific criticism and presented only in terms of its beliefs and values. All these are NPOV, i.e., they would be based on what the most knowledgeable people have to say about these topics.
I think we need to be a little more open than that. I don't think there's anything outright wrong with having learning materials that teach creationism or other theological concepts. One exciting possibility this project has is to bring together all kinds of disciplines and point of view. Why limit that to what science has approved? -- sebmol?11:20, 16 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
It's not about approval, it's about experts in a particular field. Where creationists make claims about biology, they are in the domain of biology, and experts from that field will unequivocally refute them. When they limit themselves to stating their beliefs about creation as mythology, biologists are irrelevant. NPOV requires us to give the most space to the most knowledgeable people in a particular field. I don't think there are any peer reviewed biological papers written by creationists, except maybe in their own fringe publications.--Eloquence11:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Seems to me there should be no problem with them forking it to another wiki, keeping the hard science basics, but recontextualizing to fit into a different metaphysics. --SB Johnny20:01, 16 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
NPOV is not a confirmed policy at Wikiversity yet although it may be binding by the terms of the approved proposal for six months. There is no effective material volume limit at an electronic learning institution beyond that of our infrastructure. If the Wikimedia Foundation refuses to host intellectually honest non NPOV material then that will limit our initial learning processes quite a bit and likely limit initial participation but it will have to be lived with until other arrangements are feasible for supporting infrastructure and technical expertise. There are at least two kinds of peer review likely to be quite prevalent at Wikiversity. Peers at equivalent levels exchanging/studying material new to them. People with less learning in a given subject interacting with a subject expert. In the latter case "NPOV only" attitudes are likely to at least occasionally hamper people attempting to analyze the assumptions and detailed reasoning chains implicit in their own current POV. While this may be appropriate for highest speed manufacturing of an NPOV encyclopedia I have serious questions regarding its uncritical application to self motivated peer exchange groups. Mirwin04:35, 18 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Although I agree there is no electronic limit to the material. If we really want to provide usable teaching materials, there will limits on the materials themselves. Lessons must be doable in a reasonble amount of time and courses also have usability limits. This will certainly hamper the WP approach of giving voice to all competing opinions in order to achieve NPOV.--BirgitteSB22:27, 18 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I disagree entirely. There are no single standard fits all. With alternate presentations always just a link or search away why define straitjackets? If somebody wants to come in a provide a single massive two week lesson plan and others feel it is unwieldly and unusable as is then they can take the FDL'ed material, link back to the point of origin, and rip it up and represent in whatever chunks they wish to present to their intended audience. Now we have two groups serviced. The orginal group of two oddballs that show up to interact with the first one. And the millions who can benefit from the second. Certainly we should have some voluntary guidelines or non binding recommendations on how to effectively present the material. Consider a division of labor between technicians, tech writers, engineeers, and customer instructors. We wish to get information from all of these sources and present it to all of these sources. In some topics an engineer does not want effective lesson plans. He/she has spent between four and ten years learning the material in reasonable size chunks. When studying advanced techniques some of them would prefer a huge (and I mean huge) specification document and a thick drawing set (say two inches of E-size drawings). If someone chooses to FDL a set of the above in print ready FDL form so it can be used somehow in an intensive 3 day seminar on how to do a real heat analysis of a real building we do not want someone pointing to a firm limit that was set out of concern for the mythical average student. Wikiversity to some extent should be about freedom from constraints often encountered with good reason in physical world but which are being redefined by managed information on demand on the internet. If there are practical considerations like disk space and servers then obviously we have to live with it we can expand the infrastructure appropriately. There are articles on Wikipedia in math way too technical and compressed for non mathmaticians. I have a fairly good practical education in math and since I have difficulty reading these pages I know they are not appropriate for the general public. The solution is not to delete or restrict these pages but rather add appropriate introductory lead in material liberaly laced with links to entire textbooks at Wikibooks and courses here at Wikiversity such that the average reader who chooses to can spend ten years studying math and then go back and read these advanced pages and fix typos if they choose to discuss them for a few months with the others hanging around the page. Mirwin23:35, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
When we start labelling pages with "pseudoscience" or other pejorative terms we compromise our neutrality. When we silence the creationist or expect him to explain himself from the confines of the coffin to which we have relegated his ideas we give the lie to our own principles. It is not the function of NPOV to put chains on free speech; it is sufficient that it support an asymptotic approach to consensus. Thus faced with the thesis of "Arguments for creationism" we must allow for a (presumably articulate) guest lecturer to put forth his point of view as a proponent fairly and unmolested. Another guest lecturer in opposition should be able to present his case under the same circumstances. Both of these POVs should be protected. The "students" would then discuss the matter and strive to bring the matter closer to NPOV. Most importantly, part of their discussions should be focused on what do these two guests have in common. The role of the teacher in all this is not to disburse knowledge, but to facilitate its acquisition by the students, perhaps by repeatedly asking the questions that bring a subject to a new synthesis of NPOV. Eclecticology20:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Wikiversity would never try to silence creationists, but Wikiversity can force creationists who participate at Wikiversity to follow a code of intellectual honesty. Wikiversity scholars need a way to move beyond the confines of Wikipedia's NPOV policy. I think that a policy on Scholarly ethics is a good way to guide Wikiversity participants when they step outside of the confines of NPOV. --JWSchmidt20:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
"I am a creationist, and this is what I believe: ... " <-- I have two questions about your question: 1) What more does the creationist say after, "I believe"? Many "scientific creationists" assume the existence of a "supernatural force". As soon as you go down that road you place yourself in the position of needing to explain what a "supernatural force" is and why you can assume that one exists.
2) What is the context of, "I believe"?. In the study of religion, the observation that many people believe in a "supernatural force" is not remarkable. In the study of science, the concept "supernatural force" must be approached with skepticism and Occam's razor, key elements of scientific investigation that very few "scientific creationists" bother to apply to their religious convictions. If unexamined belief is the foundation of one's exploration of reality then you have left the domain of science. Creationists who do so, yet continue to claim to be "scientific creationists" have become pseudoscientists. I would not exclude such an article from Wikiversity, but if an article is making pseudoscientific claims then it should be in Category:Pseudoscience. --JWSchmidt11:58, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
18 August 2006
Logo and slogan
Latest comment: 18 years ago13 comments8 people in discussion
OK, we are the "The limitless learning center" according to wikipedia. After about a week (to get partisipents) we should start up a slogan and logo contest.--Rayc00:21, 18 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
"The limitless learning center" might be a good slogan, but it's a poor description. (It tells readers nothing about the project's nature.) I changed the text to "Free learning materials." —David Levy07:24, 18 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I've used "Free Learning tools" on the other Wikimedia websites. I am still not sure what should go here, but it is important that people are made aware of this project. --Robert Horning13:18, 18 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
How about "Open learning centre"? Or is that too similar to "Open University" (a household name in the UK)? And on the logo contest, if someone wants to organise these, please be bold and do so. It should even help generate further momentum in the project. Cormaggio13:24, 18 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
JW, I like the one you mention. This catches the dual nature of textual study and engaged learning. To tweak: How about "free learning resources and activities." Materials sounds more limiting than resources. Reswik01:21, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
On second thought and taking a step back... A consensus mission statement could be very helpful. Perhaps a consensus mission statement needs to be developed first. Then, a slogan could reflect that. But can the mission be settled while the status and extent of research in WV is up in the air? If extensive research sponsorship is eventually a part of WV, then a slogan might read like: "creating and sharing free knowledge." And this is really the nature of a university or any academy of scholars: creating and sharing knowledge. The free culture movement adds freedom and co-creation of content to that mission. Sharing can imply co-creation, so one can add freedom to "creating and sharing knowledge." Sharing also implies service another aspect of the life of universities. There may be actually too much emphasis on learning in some WV discussions at the cost of service and knowledge creation -- which are also primary motivations of scholars. Reswik02:49, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
We need to lose the beta on the logo. This is not a software project. The project is fundamentally about building online learning communities. Would you spend your precious social/learning time joining a club of card players, fraternity, or writing circle with a loud "Beta, planned shutdown next week." painted on the front door? Mirwin07:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Marking Wikiversity as "beta" is just a warning to the outside world that nobody should expect to find a finished "product" on any Wikiversity page. Speaking bluntly, I suspect it (the beta period) is also a way to "cover one's ass". I know that during the next six months Jimbo will run into people who say, "I saw Wikiversity and, you know, there is nothing useful there." But Jimbo will be able to say, "Ya, well, it is in a beta phase, just getting on its feet. It is not really open for serious use yet." Jimbo should have that kind of "out". --JWSchmidt20:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Exams
Latest comment: 18 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion
Is there any possibility of including exams later? I personally believe that it would be a good idea, to have after awhile. Spacey22:41, 18 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
There is a CSS script that is available to help facilitate testing, and we are likely going to be doing some "experiments" here as well in a number of areas to help with this. Indeed, this is precisely one of the major activities we are going to be doing with Wikiversity, and if you happen to know some php programming, you would be welcome to try and help out with either extentions to MediaWiki or helping to modify CSS scripts that would allow stuff like this.
This is something that was discussed and even worked on during the "proposal" period of Wikiversity. Of course we are also open to new ideas, and trying to decide how testing might actually happen. --Robert Horning05:25, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Also, it has been previously discussed and agreed that our FDL'ed learning materials can include tests for users to use elsewhere (say in a homeschool environment) or for local learners to check themselves or in cooperation with a mentor to see how they are doing in an area of study. Mirwin22:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Er, CSS has nothing to do with writing scripts for software...you mean JavaScript or PHP, I take it? I personally think MediaWiki is going to need a bit of extension writing done before it's suitable for all Wikiversity purposes. Question is, what do we need? Perhaps a separate forum should be started. robchurch | talk22:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
There is a Wikivervsity-L mailing where generic discussion can take place. The Technical Developers mailing of the Wikimedia Foundation is the place to start immediately with immediate task or project goals as they must approve anything placed on the Wikimedia Foundations servers, which is our underlying infrastructure at the moment. As for a separate forum I could see the rationale for putting under the School of Pedagogy with links from various other schools. Requirements discussions to be followed eventually by learning projects for implementation. Mirwin06:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
In case it hasn't clicked yet, I'm a MediaWiki developer. :) So I know quite a bit about "how it works at Wikimedia" and the sort of barriers to putting crap on the servers. Technical discussions can, and should take place on wikitech-l, of course, but that is not the place we should be deciding what we need developed for this project; that should happen here. robchurch | talk12:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
An important question here could be what do we want to accomplish with exams. In keeping with a lot of ideas that have gone around educational communities we should strive to assessment for learning, and not of learning. Howard Gardner and others have studied this matter in education, and see examinations as a part of a feedback loop that leads to greater learning. Rather than trying to draft full scale exams from the beginning it would probably be more helpful to develop workbooks where the students could enter their answers, and the software could immediately assess their answers without the "teacher" even needing to know if they were right or wrong. A right answer would allow the student to move on. A wrong answer could redirect the student elsewhere, perhaps breaking down the problem into its component parts. I could certainly see the usefulness of this in Robert's proposed algebra course. Eclecticology20:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
19 August 2006
Needless diversion..
Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
..but I just realised that, if you click someone's contributions (eg. mine), you are also getting their contributions to a page they have developed on another wiki (such as Meta or Wikibooks), but which has been moved to Wikiversity. It's not a problem of course, just something I found interesting. Cormaggio10:49, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
That's due to the import process preserving histories, of course, and it's one of the main reasons use of the proper methods is preferred. :) robchurch | talk22:05, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Absolutely :-). I was just surprised to see my contribs list (not that it's anything spectacular, mind) - and then it made me think that some people would be eligible to vote in the upcoming board elections with just their Wikiversity edits.. ;-) Cormaggio15:43, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion
Wikipedia is about making an encyclopedia and has "featured articles". Wikiversity is about learners and should have "featured participants". Wikiversity should also have "featured content" as a way to show off our best learning projects and learning materials. --JWSchmidt15:10, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Wikibooks has a "Book of the Month" instead (as well as "collaboration of the month") and this might be a more viable option for us until we start to develop some really excellent material. Perhaps "Learning project of the Month"? Though, I'm not too enamoured by the idea of "Learner of the Month" - akin to your "featured participant" ;-) Cormaggio15:23, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Something I was impressed with at Wikipedia was individuals started giving specific awards such as Barnburner or Barn Builder?, colored star achievement (easy on that too prevalent in lower grade school 8/ ) to individuals they saw doing something impressive. They were simply little cute icons that were put on home pages or talk pages. The point is they were a direct pat on the back from individuals rather than the entire community and possibly avoids the jealousies or tedium of selection or ratification by the entire community. Besides, it will quickly get difficult to reach agreement as a total community. Mirwin00:52, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
I'm trying to figure out where to place GPL licensed Java applet code and binary to start a prototype physics lab lesson (source from Virginia University). I looked at WikiSource and the Commons and clearly they do not qualify to hold those files. Is it envisaged the Wikiversity will host things like that? Awolf00218:59, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
It has not really been addressed yet how generic and self sufficient Wikiversity intends to be. All early discussions of this nature during the proposal prepartion and prototyping phase were colored by insistence of proponents of other Wikimedia Foundation sponsored that Wikiversity never be allowed to compete with them for purpose or participants. Usual rationale stated against this was duplication of materials on Wikimedia Foundation server hard drive space. Might I suggest you start with sourceforge.org until a firm policy or capability emerges if you intend the code to be run on the student's machines and immediate service is required? The open source Wikimedia wiki software that we depend is actually hosted there to provide easy access and configuration control support. I certainly think we need the capability for classes to download and use java applets or executable binary analysis tools but it raises large hairy issues about security of the files so we do not have vandals or crackers downloading compromised files with virus or spyware to our participants. Maybe you could subscribe to the Wikiversity-L mailing list[1] and start a policy discussion and/or start a policy discussion under the Organization of Wikiversity Self Management[2] link off the main page. This certainly bears on both short and long term organizational structure issues. Should each class handle this stuff or should it be filtered through a central group maybe based out of a computer or engineering school. Perhaps it is best if this is handled by Wikimedia Foundation's tech support, perhaps not. My personal preference is that we get a Wikiversity Technical Support group setup and rolling as soon as possible. Our Wikiversity technical developers should participate at the Wikimedia Developers mailing list and their site at Sourceforge. I think the needs of a large learning institution will quickly overwhelm the current Wikimedia Foundation tech staff with routine work unless it can be automated as other features have been at Commons and other places. I think initially either they will need to expand or we will need to provide a lot of initial tech support and then hand the final requirements to their technical staff for final implementation on their servers. Mirwin22:46, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Well, interesting... I signed up with the mailing list. For what it is worth, choosing a Java applet is intended to ally fears about running arbitrary code from an non-trusted source, since this code is in the Java sandbox. But, I do see the need for a management of source coding/pre-compilation steps. I just had hoped that each interactive lab will have some kind of "steward" to watch over it. I definitely do not think we should break with the approach of nobody owning anything on the wiki, but it all is "free" as promised. Awolf00200:12, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
This might be great stuff for junior hackers to increase proficiency with open compilers and to learn code management techniques while working with our sophisticated developers when they all show up and volunteer. There was sombody starting a Java learning program a few months back. When I check back I will keep my eyes open for potential volunteers to point your way. 8) Mirwin00:56, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I'm not so well up on tech issues, but one thing I know is that Wikimedia projects are dedicated to free software and file formats, so if there's a file format that isn't allowed on Wikisource or Commons, there's a good chance it's not allowed on all Wikimedia projects. Please, though, correct me if i'm wrong. In general, Wikiversity does need to look into its tech needs/requirements, and it would be great if people interested in wikiversity would participate in tech discussions. Most of this is on the wikitech mailing list or on IRC channels: #wikimedia-tech or, more generally, #mediawiki (on Freenode). I'd say peopel there would be better equipped to deal with technical questions than people here (though I could be wrong :-)) In any case, it's great you're trying to apply this to your own learning materials/course. Cormaggio10:00, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Please contribute to developing and refining the mission statement for Wikiversity.
To participate: please post or edit a sentence here that characterizes what you think Wikiversity is and can be: Wikiversity mission.
The Delphi method is suggested as a participatory way to develop a mission statement. The method enables a wide range of input to achieve a synthesis of what is best in previous and current creative work. -- Reswik03:19, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I was quite excited to learn that some institutions such as MIT releasing content as "OpenCourseWare." We need to have a clear policy or guidelines on how we use or don't use this material.
The big issue will be licensing. E.g. the MIT OCW Creative Commons license requires attribution. Perhaps we can have templates, placed at the bottom of pages or sections, stating that the material is based on or uses materials from institution X.
Latest comment: 18 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
We don't want confusion or duplication of materials... but I couldn't find anything on Wikiversity to explain exactly what goes there and what goes here. Wikibooks is for textbooks, Wikiversity is for course material... but there's a lot of overlap, so clarification is needed. --Singkong200508:11, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Basically, we are to Wikibooks what a school is to a bookstore/publisher. We use Wikibooks plus other materials (both hosted here and elsewhere) and combine that for the purpose of facilitating learning about a subject. Does that make sense? -- sebmol?15:12, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Yes, but Singkong's question is a valid one - I think we need to make that clearer for newcomers to the project (and, aren't people coming in at quite a rate..?). I started Wikiversity:Adding content (which needs work) to help newcomers, but we probably need a better introduction page (or two). Cormaggio15:49, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. My impression was that it was something like sebmol described. However, Topic:Foreign Language says: Get to work writing lessons! Simply make a link to the name of the lesson (lessons are independent pages) and start writing! It seemed like this suggestion perhaps shouldn't be in Wikiversity, and so I looked for clarification.
I gather discussions have taken place somewhere about what exactly Wikiversity is? Can they be used as the basis of some help and introduction pages? --Singkong200516:19, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I would propose to create a specific name space called [[Learning group:XXXX]]. The pages on the "learning group" name space could be:
The meeting point of those users studying in these groups.
The place where they can share questions and answers, as well as useful information related to those studies.
The pages in this namespace should be able to have subpages ([[Namespace:Page/Subpage]]) where the learning group can organize archives, different activities,...
I think that having a differentiated namespace for that purpose would facilitate organizing content in the whole project of Wikiversity. What do you think about?--Javier Carro08:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I think that's what the main namespace should be used for. Learning projects have talk pages that can be used exactly for that purpose. -- sebmol?09:52, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
We seem so scattered around on this project - can we designate a place to have centralized discussions, say, like a cafeteria? --HappyCamper10:31, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
Perhaps I am misunderstanding what this project is all about, but I am finding it difficult to grasp what exactly it is we are trying to do here. I thought it might be prudent for me to share some experiences I've had over on Wikipedia - specifically at the Reference desk.
I have watched the desk grow from a single page which dealt with a potpourri of ideas, to one where we have multiple pages for different topics. At the moment, the way I see it, Wikiversity aims to be an efficiently run institution analogous to the reference desk. Multiple topics with multiple participants collaboratively answering and asking questions on a certain topic. Of course, with slight modifications here and there, but essentially, topics should accumulate
I bring this up, because it is apparent from the success and popularity of the reference desk that much of that can carry over to this project. It is by far, one of the most heavily edited project pages. It is also edited by the most diverse of Wikipedians. The ratio of productive edits to vandalism is the highest amoung comparable pages of that size. The amazing thing is that there are actually very few institutionalized rules for governing the operation of the reference desk. There are rarely conflicts on the desk which cannot be resolved within a day or so. I am optimistic that we can achieve that here as well. In fact, I might suggest that we create a reference desk somewhere here, just to get everyone together and work collaboratively. In this way, at least we can quickly accumulate a critical mass of editors working on "scholarly stuff". --HappyCamper11:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I like the idea of relating the reference desk to this project. I mean, in a sense, the reference desk doesn't really fit into Wikipedia. It's just a means to learn about something, which is what Wikiversity strives to be. -- sebmol?15:14, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Oh yes, HappyCamper, we will definitely benefit from a space akin to the Reference Desk, where people can ask questions and then be directed to the materials or communities on that subject. Your experience in helping us in this regard is invaluable :-) Cormaggio15:52, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I think Wikiversity will eventually have many "help desks".....asking questions is so fundamental to learning. We also need something like a "request desk" where people can just drop by and say what they would like to be able to learn about at Wikiversity. Even a "suggestions and comment box" would be useful. --JWSchmidt21:37, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Another question
Latest comment: 18 years ago13 comments9 people in discussion
How is course material written here different from a textbook? Can we say, perhaps that what is written here is like course notes for a textbook? --HappyCamper11:58, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
The idea here is to develop learning materials. Those can come in the form of a textbook, something like course notes, or really almost anything.--digital_metalk13:26, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
FWIW, you can save PowerPoint files as image files (pdf) and then upload that to the wiki (though i'm not sure if that's what you were asking). Cormaggio15:54, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Well, making PPT files and then uploading them would work, but what if there was a misspelling on page 2. You would have to download it, edit it, then uploaded it again. There would be no way of seeing diffs or even telling it was the same presentation without compairing it. Would be neat to have a wiki-equlvanat to PPT, just like this page is an equvalant to word.--Rayc20:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I think that wikiversity should rely hevily on multimedia to augment the learning. Lectures similar to wikipedia's recorded articles would be a good place to start; videos of powerpoint-style presentations or videos of learning concepts (i.e. a chemical reaction or a car engine running) also have huge potential.--The Winged Self03:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
This discussion reflects the confusion on Wikiversity - that the project hasn't clarified what should go in Wikibooks, and what should go in Wikiversity. See my question at #Demarcating Wikibooks & Wikiversity. Note that Digitalme's comment in this section (about develop learning materials including textbooks) contradicts sebmol & Cormaggio's answers to the Demarcating Wikibooks & Wikiversity question. I don't mean to be harsh - confusion is understandable, be we need to deal with it immediately and nip it in the bud.
It is written down at meta in many of the discussions regarding what Wikiversity is not. It is further defined by Wikibooks Mission Statement to write "NPOV" "Textbooks" only. Wikiversity's requirements are much looser as we intend to host actual learning processes for actual people. Not just textbooks suitable for others to use elsewhere. Many of the materials already drafted at Wikibook use links to Wikibooks texts as well as FDL'ed texts and copyrighted texts around the web to form their lesson plans or outlines or notes. So basically Wikiversity is going to be slightly more generic learning materials and processes while the best of the material should migrate to Wikibooks as high grade NPOV textbook quality material to be published and maintained there. Mirwin05:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
where is this written down?
The idea that Wikiversity participants can develop textbooks contradicts nothing. Wikiversity participants can work to develop textbooks, but all textbooks will be kept at Wikibooks. Please read the project proposal. If the statement, "Wikiversity is not a duplication of other Wikimedia projects," is not enough for you, follow the link to Wikiversity:What Wikiversity is not where it says: "Wikiversity is not a repository of textbooks". Textbook development is going to be a very minor part of Wikiversity. Most Wikiversity learning resources will not have anything to do with textbooks. --JWSchmidt06:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Philosophical things
Latest comment: 18 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
For want of a better place to write and share ideas, I think we need to be a bit careful about the sort of thinking we want to establish here. Do we wish to take on the traditional rationalist approach used in most universities around the world? Or should be consider Wikiversity as a sort of experimental place for alternative educational strategies? What balance should we have between different extremes? --HappyCamper12:22, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Good question - and one which will need its own page to address :-). I think that, since different people learn in different ways, and every teacher has a preference for (a) particular form(s) of pedagogy, we will need to be open to different kinds of materials - conventional and radical. Personally I think we should be trying new things (I think that's one of the whole points of Wikiversity), but that we should also try to be relevant to the teacher who needs some material for their next day's class, for example. In any case, the idea of setting up a page outlining different pedagogies is an excellent one - and which was also suggested during Wikimania. How about Wikiversity:Pedagogies? Or Wikiversity:Teaching and learning styles? Cormaggio16:01, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
The balance is inherent in alternate material being a quick click away. Also, our Custodians and regular users are certainly going to be alert for false advertising that leads us astray. Keep in mind that any user can delete any link or descriptive paragraph they feel misleads them into inappropriate or incorrect areas of the stacks. Just as militant groups will not be able to restrain others in accordance with their thinking it will be difficult for "alternate" or "experimental" groups to mislead people into their material. The key to the scenario as I paint will be willing knowledgeable participation of our regular learners and mentors. Bold editing as appropriate. Ultimately the large volume of participants will evolve and protect sensible link routes into various materials. Mirwin05:55, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Participants of Wikiversity
Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Yes, yes...I know I'm the only one posting here at the moment :-) But I was wondering...what is the name of a participant of Wikiversity? Would it be a "wikiversian"? But this sounds very clumsy. I wonder if there might be a better alternative? --HappyCamper12:46, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Candidates for Custodianship <-- this page is for community comment. At Wikiversity sysops are called "custodians" (sysops are usually called "adminstrators" at other Wikimedia projects).
21 August 2006
User Profile?
Latest comment: 18 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
Some one point me in the right direction if I’m just lost, but is there a specific place where a user such as myself can my own profile so as to create a level of respectability with my contributions?
--michael_DesignNZ00:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
At the moment I think the best introduction is the approved proposal. With 37 files transwiki'ed on an adhoc basis it might be a litte hard to find good tour areas. Mirwin06:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Is there a wiki catalogue for finding out what has been written on a particular subject or by a particular author? Or has there been any attempt at creating a universal catalogue of academic writings? I would assume that this would be an incredible asset to many academics and I would love to know if any such service exists out side of private databases and library catalogues? I have been tempted to start a list of important texts and even websites for my own subject area with the hope that others may add to it but it would be much more productive if there was a central database.
Wikiversity needs projects for creating catalogs of publications. Wikiversity currently has this "starter" project: Citing Sources. The "citing sources" project and all of Wikiversity will need to grow towards the goal of providing easy access to publications that Wikimedia projects need to cite. As a center for scholarship, Wikiversity should participate in developing such "bibliography" projects that will be of use in all Wikimedia projects. --JWSchmidt06:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Lessons?
Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Is there a general idea of what the lessons should be like? Should they be written essay-style, or more like an outline to follow? I'm a bit confused as to whether the lessons are meant to be utelized by teachers, students, or both. --The Winged Self04:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Any or all of the above. The idea is to cover all areas useful to any learners. We, the advocates of the Wikiversity project for the last two years, are aware that is a gigantic scope which will take a lot of volunteers to hit critical mass. Then it will take a lot of participation by learners and education professionals. Ultimately we hope to be an FDL'ed archive of useful materials for use by anyone elsewhere as they see fit and for the local spontaneous or planned use of new learning processes spawned or joined by randomly arriving participants interested in any specific or general study of "free human knowledge". So Edit Boldly and provide as many different versions as you please to place at different appropriate places in the link mazes accessible as appropriate from different learning portals. Mirwin06:24, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Some Wikiversity learning resources can be for easy download and use by teachers in bricks-and-mortar schools. Some Wikiversity learning materials might be tutorials that could be used by online learners browsing Wikiversity. Remember, Wikiversity has adopted a "learn by doing" model of online learning. We need learning projects for Wikiversity participants. In the early stages, good learning projects might involve working on a Wikibooks textbook or creating Wikiversity tutorials. Wikiversity participants can learn about topics while they help build Wikiversity. --JWSchmidt06:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I am concerned that the current Naming conventions page may prematurely encourage the unnecessary expansion of a hierarchy of substructural elements (division, subdivision, department, subdepartment, etc.). This could lead to overstructuring new projects -- loosing content development items in a mass of mostly unused structure oriented text. This could be quite a turn off to the kind of creative learners and scholars we wish to get involved in Wikiversity early on. Hence, I created this alternate policy: Network naming conventions.
In the interest of encouraging creativity and networking, as one experiment in organization (and there should be others) but also as a possible top level view of wikiversity study areas/departments, this network naming policy calls for a strict limit on the hierarchy of school elements (these being school, area, and project).
This policy could encourage horizontal spreading of study areas and the creation of various interdisciplinary areas that draw on other areas of study. Hence, diversification of participation in area (department) set up and interdisciplinary cooperation might possibly result. This would make for longer lists of study areas and more inter-areas, but that is the nature of networks. It is an alternative. Perhaps it should be developed first before the hierarchical naming model. Comments? Reswik17:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
The School>Division>Departmentt>Learning Project hierarchy is just an organizational tool. People who are familiar with traditional academic disciplines are going be arriving at Wikiversity in search of pages related to a particular topic of study that they are interested in. They will be able to make use of an easy to navigate hierarchical system that can lead them to the relevant Wikiversity pages. I agree that we want to free Wikiversity participants from the restrictions of conventional categorizations. We are free to invent new portals in the "Portal:" namespace. Learning materials can be arranged into any imaginable categories. Right now we only have a few portals such as Portal:Learning Projects. Feel free to make new ones. --JWSchmidt17:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I think that academics can just as easily or even more easily find a subject area with this simple hierarchy: School>Area>Learning Project with area being a traditional topic name like Biology. Choosing to represent at the start the organization of topics by the traditional division/subdivision/department/subdepartment/etc. categories (rather than by using simple network language suggested above or some such) brings connotations (and possible assumptions and practices) of authority, power and bureaucratic relations and processes that do not need to be in the project at the start. While we may decide to use such terms in long run, trying some other more flexible structure now could be very valuable. Now the above distinctions may not seem a bit deal but the concepts and structure entailed are quite different.
Using simple neutral "network"/spatial sounding terms as our first and main (for now) organization scheme might be a very interesting social/organizational experiment. Doing this would fit with and possibly create a synergy in unexpected ways amongst a variety of factors at play in Wikipedia: the nontraditional educational nature of this project, the grounding of this in wiki culture and in the free culture movement, and participant creativity evident in startup projects. Then again, maybe not. Don't know if don't try. Let's talbe the old (for possible later use) and as a first stop on this journey do something a bit new and evocative of the medium and our values. Reswik23:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Lesson plans - The watering hole concept
Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I'm in the process of creating some lesson plan pages for physics, and the idea that I have in my head is the watering hole concept. Basically, its 2:30 a.m., you have EM homework due the next day, and the material makes no sense. What I'd like to have is some page that you can go to at wikiversity with links to study materials and hints, which will make it your first destination. Now once you have one confused student ending up at that page, you are likely also to have a lot of confused students showing up at that page at 2:30 a.m., at which point people start discussing things over IRC and you start to develop a community.
Excellent! This matches my college experience with 400 level physics, a couple of nights a week at the student memorial union. I suggest you remind them they cannot submit copyrighted problems (i.e. an exact problem from their class assignment) but if they modify the problem or submit a problem similar to what they have in their problem sets I for one would welcome a chance to hack through one occasionally with some interaction from other interested parties. If they start early in the week they might have useful examples to compare with their tougher assigned problems. We can build up an example library that way with just a few participants occasionally tackling a problem and categorize them by topic or link to them from lessons. As you say, this might start a community. Particularly if we get active students from multiple institutions. I will try the technique on a couple general engineering classes so we have a couple of data points on how it works and in what disciplines. 68.238.143.22508:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
22 August 2006
Naming Conventions
Latest comment: 18 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
Does anyone have an opinion on whether this chain of links meets one of the naming conventions or not? I am having a bit of trouble visualizing what is intended from the naming conventions files.
I like the idea of using "Poortal" instead of "School". It breaks with tradition, and establishes Wikiversity as something different. Carrying it further, "Topic" shows a remarkable lack of imagination. A "Cupboard" that one opens, and which one enters into a world of discoveries would have a more unique flavour. Thus far people seem to have put in tremendous effort building up all these ticky-tacky boxes to store all the lessons that we do not yet have. Wikipedia had the material long before it had the boxes. The boxes do look a little pompous. Eclecticology07:36, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
"remarkable lack of imagination" <-- At the risk of putting unwanted words into the mouths of those who decided to create the Wikiversity "Topic:" namespace, I suspect that the "Topic:" prefix was selected because it is bland. "Topic" pages should be thought of as special portals that provide user-friendly access to a collection of learning resources that are related to a particular topic of study. The Wikiversity schools each concern themselves with a particular set of several related topics of study. The Wikiversity community long ago decided to organize learning resources by making use of a list of schools corresponding to major divisions of academic topic areas. The Wikiversity naming conventions have been developed in order to adapt the list of Wikiversity schools to the Wikiversity "School:", "Topic:" and "Portal" namespaces. "School:" and "Topic:" pages should be thought of as specialized portals with specific well-defined and strictly limited functions. At Wikiversity a "Portal:" page can be associated with any category that is not more appropriately associated with a "School:" or "Topic:" page. "Portal:" pages are particularly useful for guiding Wikiversity participants into categories of learning resources that are difficult to fit into conventional academic disciplines. --JWSchmidt12:27, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
www.wikiversity.org
Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Latest comment: 18 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion
Wikipedia has a general policy of "posting no resumes" on the user pages, but in the case of Wikiversity, I think that might be a little bit too much. There has been some requests for some biographical information on the part of the "instructors" that are invovled with this project and their educational background.
I'm just throwing this out there, but I think such information is very useful and that perhaps extended biographical notes can be not only allowed but encouraged strongly, particularly for the leaders of learning groups. This is not to suggest that Wikiversity ought to be a resume posting service, but there are times and places to legitimately have this information.
I welcome debate on this topic, especially if there are individuals who understand the reasoning and philosophy behind the anti-resume policy on Wikipedia. I'd like to know the justifications for that policy and to see if those justifications really apply to Wikiveristy. I don't think they do, but I would like to be somewhat cautious. --Robert Horning14:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
This seems not to be a general rule. German Wikipedia doesn't have it, for example, and there are plenty of users who post their resume. I don't know of any reason why that shouldn't be allowed. -- sebmol?14:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I have not seen this written down explicitly, but it does exist, at least implicitly - very often, curriculum vitae posted on userpages on English Wikipedia are used to for things like job hunting, advertising, and such. Also, a lot of these pages are created by new users who do not understand what a Wiki is. Sometimes, these pages are deleted to protect the user's privacy. Generally speaking, an administrator on English Wikipedia uses their discretion to delete these pages - if it is apparent that the user has no intention of contributing material to the encyclopedia, then it would be deleted. Often, I add a writeup of sorts on the user's talk page to explain what is going on. Many people, especially new administrators, are quite observant of what other administrators do, so I find it important to document such things. Other Wikipedians might give a different interpretation of the above, but it all boils down to common sense, and striving a good balance between the needs of newcomers and the needs of the community. I suspect that this is not documented extensively on Wikipedia, simply because there are too many subtleties involved. One coulde codify this, but it would not be an effective policy.
Now, I suppose there shouldn't be a problem with someone posting their curriculum vitae here, but I think we want to be careful that Wikiversity doesn't degenerate into a place where people simply meetup with common interests, and then leave. We want to foster communities that will thrive online here, not offline. So for that reason, if curriculum vitae are written for job hunting, it probably should not be here. But, if someone posted that they had experience doing X at company Y, and wanted to share their educational experiences, that might be something to look at - imagine, say, an astronaut documenting about their training and experience here!
There is quite a lot to say about this, but I'll step back for a little bit to see what happens. One thing that worries me about such a project, is that assuming this becomes a succesful project, the ambiguity in many situations will mean that administrators will need to make very mature and judicious decisions to handle these things. I might even suggest that to make the administrative community more cohesive here, we could do something simple such as the following: Each administrator has a subpage where periodically, say, every month, another administrator comes by, signs it and simply says 'Hey! How are you doing these days? :-) ' - And of course, conversations take off, and checks and balances automatically come in as a result. --HappyCamper17:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I think Wikiversity projects should list only "active participants" on their main pages and no titles should be used. If there is a list of participants on the main page of a project then the participants should state what their personal goals are for helping to developing the project. Additional information about individual participants can go on subpages such as: Cell Biology/JWSchmidt. --JWSchmidt18:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I think right now active mean anyone who made at least one edit to that department's page, which coveres adding yourself to the list. When we get bigger, then we can impose higher limmits.--Rayc18:47, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I agree, resume/CV is very important as far as credibility goes
Dept. of History
I've taken the liberty to post the first bits in the School of History; however, it is rather general information regarding what "good history" includes, vital themes, etc. I am in search of anyone that may be interested in helping to better structure and develop the school. NCHE1776
Babel
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 18 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion
Ther apperently has been some work on making quizes on wikitext. Look at this. The people at mediawiki said brion or another dev would have to install this an an extention. They say it's an ugly hack. Maybe some of our computer science people could take a look at it? "Hint hint" --Rayc01:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
The posted code is not an acceptable implementation, but the idea is sound enough that I might take it, run with it, and write a special page extension; as a rough write-down of what I'm thinking, this would allow creating quizzes in a "quiz" namespace, accessing, e.g. Special:Quiz/Foo, answering questions and having scores totalled up either at the end, or as one progresses.
What is presently wrong with the{{ABCD}} template? It seems intuitive. I think it would be useful for in text questions and pop quizes, but your right that we need something more advanced with tests. It needs to give grading and have a timer feature. I could work up a subpage system that could do autograding, but it would require 2^N subpages to work (where N=# of questions)--Rayc02:47, 25 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Animation files for lessons
Latest comment: 18 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Do we support uploading animation/video file formats for lessons or should all of these type of audiovisual aids be loaded at WikiCommons? I have a query at their village pump regarding a specific avi file but I am wondering if a generic guideline should be put together detailing how, when, where, why types of things for generic chunks for lesson plans. Mirwin02:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Yes I think I might try that. I need to load the file into one of my animation tools and create a couple of jpg's for the lesson plan so it will be a while. I have some other computer problems to deal with first. Thanks! Mirwin08:21, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Good question, Michael. Commons is meant as the general Wikimedia media repository of course, but it might be a good idea for people to host their media files here first before we decide what's best. I simply mean, will Wikiversity's and Commons' file use policies differ in any way? Cormaggio10:26, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Guided tour
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Is anyone else having problems with Adobe readers of PDF files or know anything about how to resolve persistent crashing of Adobe reader versions 6 and 7 on Windows XP?. Much of the course work in engineering at MIT's OCW is in PDF files as well as some of NASA's download materials so now after being aware of the problem for six months I am seriously interested in a fix. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Mirwin08:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Absolutely :-). Eventually (or possible sooner than that) I think we'll need a Metadata system in place so that someone interested can quickly find, say, a learner resource for Key Stage 5 on the History of Egypt (or whatever). Categories are our basic way of doign this for now - but we'll probably need something better. User:WiseWoman is working on this, as far as I know. Cormaggio14:09, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
The very short motto will go with our logo (yet to be chosen) for listing on wikimedia sister projects. The slogan will go on the top of our main page with "Welcome to Wikiversity."
A simple contest process is suggested:
list as many mottos and slogans as you wish
add *one* vote for one motto and one slogan
feel free to change vote and add mottos at any time.
winners are the motto and the slogan with strong majority of votes. (there may need to be a run off if a strong majority is not achieved).
voting ends in 15 days: September 7, 2006, 5:00 pm GMT.
This is probably not big issue so there is short timeline suggested: 24-48 hrs perhaps. Just seems good to check that no one objects. Can always revise if strong feelings emerge later. Reswik18:47, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Voting is not evil, though many voting processes are messed up these days. :) While consensus through discussion is a wonderful objective and should be tried whenever possible, large groups have to have some sort of voting process, at least as fall back option, in order for any kind of collective decision making to unfold. Anyway, this is just a straw poll to check if anyone objects to the new design. And: I changed the wording "comment" from "vote". If you don't mind, please take time comment on the new design -- we need a few folks to indicate if they care one way or another or not at all about the change to a new design. Thx, Reswik20:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Voting is a double edged sword :P -- I don't care one way or the other, so long as we're clear that this place remains perpetually welcoming for changes that are healthy. --HappyCamper20:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
And unavoidable. ;) Ongoing flexibility would be nice - but wonder if that will turn out to be the case -- one thing is for sure: we will only see ongoing flexibility if we build our systems flexibly and keep a culture of participation going. Regarding voting: Whatever you call your group decision making -- "voting," "selecting," "rough consensus," "group process," or whatever -- eventually if there is not unanimous agreement, you have to decide what at what threshold percentage the minority opinion will be overruled (while retaining their comments in the log) in interests of moving forward. I really like that wikimedia projects look for strong majorities of 70 to 80% before moving on. Very nice. If we could do better, great. Reswik00:13, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I still agree with the general principle that voting is evil and should be avoided if possible. For the main page design, please feel free to make changes and implement them if no negative feedback has been offered. If negative feedback is give, we can discuss how to incorporate various visions into one. That surely is the model we are working under, not a majoritarian democracy. Cormaggio10:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
A vote is at minimum a concise opinion, often it is a reasoned position. This "voting is evil" crap should probably be treated as trolling. Are the currently appointed admins seriously trying to imply they are going to ignore an opinion survey's (or vote) majority position on any particular issue which they happen to disagree with? Custodial agents applying the "consensus" of the community is getting to be a pretty thin fiction if "votes are evil" campaigns are allowed to discourage systematically collecting the community members opinions or current positions on various issues. Perhaps it is time to consider implementation of a secret vote mechanism so members of the community do not feel constrained by existing custodial agents' position that "votes are evil" when choosing to express their own position. I think Debian has a serious voting mechanism that could be adapted effectively. Mirwin05:55, 25 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Votes can be used as a quick indicator of opinions, sure. But if, say, 49% of us were in favour of a policy and 51% opposed it, it would not be wise to adopt that policy as is. Consensus is an attempt to move beyond making voting necessary - that is what is meant by the maxim of voting is evil - see m:Polls are evil. Cormaggio09:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
"Custodial agents applying the "consensus" of the community" <-- There are two key issues when a custodian looks at the result of a vote. First, the custodian must wonder: "to what extent does the vote really indicate the views of the Wikiversity community?" One of the ways that "voting is evil" is that vote results often do not reflect the views of all community members, rather, they reflect only the views of the few who bothered to vote.....yet partisan voters will claim that the vote reflects community consensus even when it does not. Second, a custodian must judge if vote results are in conflict with the goals of the Wikiversity project. If a few editors set up a vote on some obscure page that results in the conclusion, "Wikiversity is a waste of space and should be deleted," no custodian is required to act on that vote result. That votes can be used as a way to counter or disrupt the mission of a project is another reason that "voting is evil". Custodians rightly place the mission of the project above the results of votes. --JWSchmidt14:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
School of Medicine
Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion
I'd like to start the School of Medicine, but thought I'd ask first because I find it rather strange it doesn't exist yet. There are already some redlinks to it. Where and how should I start?--Stevenfruitsmaak22:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago24 comments5 people in discussion
Can someone please remove the ghastly rounded corners (added to MediaWiki:Monobook.css by Sebmol on 16 August)? They look jagged and weird in Mozilla browsers, and other software (such as IE) doesn't support them (meaning that the site's appearance is intentionally inconsistent across browsers). Over at the English Wikipedia, people actually made fun of Wikiversity because of this issue (and no one disagreed). —David Levy02:15, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
This matter has been discussed here previously. None of the Wikiversity custodians seem to be concerned about these sorts of subjective evaluations of the Wikiversity buttons. The buttons look fine on my computer. Maybe you need a better display. --JWSchmidt05:50, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
1. I'd appreciate a link to the earlier discussion.
2. I sincerely hope that I've misinterpreted your comment, as it seems to imply that Wikiversity sysops are considered a higher level of user and possess the authority to dismiss other contributor's good faith concerns. Again, if that isn't what you meant, feel free to correct me.
3. There's nothing wrong with my display (the 1400x1050px LCD screen attached to my Thinkpad laptop). For some users, perhaps these actually resemble rounded corners. For me (and many other people) they appear as a series of jagged, partially disconnected lines. This is the one design element that causes websites to look better in IE than they do in Firefox.
4. As noted above, this is a Mozilla-specific feature. Approximately 85% of website visitors use Microsoft Internet Explorer (in which the rounded corners do not appear). This code creates a major style difference that manifests as users switch from browser to browser or computer to computer (which interferes with the goal of providing a uniform MonoBook interface, and can lead to confusion and frustration for users who don't understand why the appearance keeps changing). For this reason (and the reasons cited above), the inclusion of rounded corners was overwhelmingly opposed during the English Wikipedia's main page redesign process.
5. What's so desirable about rounded corners? The links at the top are supposed to resemble folder tabs (which typically aren't rounded). —David Levy06:55, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
2. No, they don't. However, they do have the discretion to make their own decision based on what's best for the project and what the community wants. So far, criticism has only been voiced by users who have had no other significant contributions to the project, hence don't constitute part of the community.
3. As I said below, please provide a screenshot. On any screen I've worked on the corners are round, not jagged and not disconnected.
4. "goal of providing a uniform MonoBook interface" - who says that's a goal?
5. IMO, they make the appearance of Wikiversity less edgy and more friendly. I'd also like to point out that Wikiversity isn't the only Wikimedia project that uses these corners. The change was made and there was no opposition from within the community but general approval. Also, I do have plenty of foulders that have round tabs and I've seen them in many offices too. It's not atypical. -- sebmol?07:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
1. Thank you. I see that one individual expressed exactly the same concerns ("jaggy edges," "gaps," "bad browser support," inconsistency, et cetera).
2. Your continued dismissal of new users' comments (with the rationale that they aren't members of the community) is illogical and counterproductive. This is a brand new project, so there aren't many experienced users yet. (And of course, most people use IE, so they won't even see the rounded corners and become aware of their existence.) This is something that jumps out at first-time visitors (whose impressions are very important), and you're telling them that their opinions don't matter. And of course, Wikiversity is part of a greater community—the Wikimedia community. I've been an active Wikimedia contributor for two years (and an English Wikipedia sysop for almost eight months). I'm one of the principal designers of the English Wikipedia main page. It isn't as though I just appeared out of nowhere. Most importantly, this is a MonoBook styling issue, not an editorial issue. Anyone with an opinion is qualified to express it, as it has no bearing on the site's academic content.
3.See below.
4. Multi-browser consistency is a widely accepted design goal of websites in general. Why would anyone want to deliberately create an appearance that significantly varies depending upon the software in use? Furthermore, compliance with W3C standards (which this code lacks) should be a top priority for all Wikimedia projects.
5. I see far more opposition than support, but you've disregarded it.
As noted elsewhere, this is the only English Wikimedia project to adopt this element. (That doesn't automatically mean that it's bad, but it certainly doesn't support your contention that it's good.) I'm not fluent in any language other than English, so my direct participation in non-English projects is extremely limited.
Folders often have rounded corners, but not on the scale of these tabs. (I apologize if I haven't adequately conveyed the distinction.) —David Levy09:01, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I admit I'm somewhat confused about the distinction. I agree that the scale of the rounding leaves a bit to be desired but that's a question of details, not a question of substance. -- sebmol?09:19, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I mean that it's common for folders to have corners that aren't perfectly straight, but the rounded portions don't constitute nearly as large a segment of each tab as this. —David Levy09:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
If you have no greater concerns than the appearance of rounded corners than maybe this isn't the project for you. -- sebmol?06:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I never claimed that this issue was my greatest concern, and the above was hardly a cordial welcome.
Some of my most significant contributions to Wikipedia have been in the area of visual design, and I'm taking time out of my rather hectic schedule to make a good faith attempt to help in that regard. Implying that I should go away because I disagree with you is a rather unkind, uncivil and unconstructive response. —David Levy06:55, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I'm glad that you put so much thought into visual design. If you care to provide a screenshot of what these corners look like on your screen, it would be much appreciated. -- sebmol?07:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
In regards to civility, responses come in the same tone as the questions that prompted them. Calling something ghastly, jagged and weird, demanding a change instead of asking for a reason for the status quo, and lastly resorting to dubious authority to support a claim that seems based on an attack of our egos (why else would we care if Wikiversity is being made fun of for such a trivial issue) is equally uncivil. -- sebmol?07:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I sincerely apologize if my original post came across as uncivil. That certainly wasn't my intention.
I used the adjectives in question to describe my personal assessment of an inanimate thing, and I didn't mean for them to be taken as insults to you or any other person. I also intended for this to be perceived as a request (not a demand) and as an invitation for others to express their opinions.
I mentioned the comments from Wikipedia not to attack anyone's ego, but because I was disheartened by them. As mentioned above, this site is a part of Wikimedia, a community of which I consider myself a member. When I saw that people were making fun of our newest project over an issue that you accurately describe as "trivial," this bothered me a great deal. Given the triviality of the problem, I saw this as something that was easily fixable.
I've taken a look at the corners and have to say that they don't appear as jagged on my screen as on the screenshot. That said, I also don't believe it is necessary that all English Wikimedia projects look the same, in fact, they rarely do. In terms of usability, it makes no difference whether corners are round or edged. It's purely an aesthetic questions (which is also why sound argumentation is rather difficult). Please also don't interpret the lack of support for the design change on the talk pages as a lack of support in general. We do talk at other places (especially here) and have discussed this numerous times. To those participating, it didn't appear like this was an issue significant enough to divert their attention away from other more productive pursuits. -- sebmol?09:18, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I'm not claiming that all of the projects should look the same as one another. I'm saying that each individual project should look the same (or as close as possible) by default for all users of graphical browsers. This is nonstandard, non-W3C-compliant HTML (a bad idea for a free, open project) and it causes the site's appearance to significantly vary depending upon the browser in use. As you now can see, the rounded corners also look terrible for some users. (That they look okay for you is beside the point.) It also makes little sense for you to disregard opinions expressed here, in favor of opinions purportedly expressed via IRC. —David Levy09:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
There's still a lot to do in Wikiversity, visual design questions included. The Community portal could use some help because at the moment it indeed looks "ghastly" and not inviting at all. Similarly, the school and portal pages could use a little more work in that regard as right now they organized more like articles than like portals. -- sebmol?09:18, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Ok, everybody - deep breath :-). If this is a problem for some people in some browsers, we should clearly be aware of it and make it easier for people to address. Is this being done at the moment? If not, clearly something needs to be done. Thanks for bringing this up, David. Can anyone address this? Cormaggio10:17, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I'm not a fan of the rounded corners, though I tweaked my custom CSS so they aren't an issue for me. I agree that they make the interface less consistent between browsers and users. I disagree with the amount of arguing taking place, this early in a small project, over what is a fairly trivial issue. If a group of users prefer one visual interpretation, then they can customise their CSS.
It might be advisable for us to keep the straight edges, to maintain a consistent look and feel with most of the other projects. Or should we go all-out and have our own skin? robchurch | talk11:11, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Most users have no idea how to set up custom CSS, so the default is what they'll always see.
I'm disappointed by Sebmol's instance upon retaining the rounded corners because "they don't appear like that on [Sebmol's] screen" and "nobody from the project has complained" (meaning that anyone who hasn't contributed an arbitrary amount of content isn't "from the project" and has no valid opinion on the subject). Even after I provided the requested screenshot (proving that the appearance is extremely sloppy for some), my concerns were dismissed.
Sebmol's attitude ignores the fact that the most important users of any Wikimedia project are its readers (not merely those who edit). This matter pertains not to editorial decisions, but to the interface that almost all readers see by default. Telling people that their viewpoints are irrelevant (regardless of an issue's triviality) is likely to alienate readers (many of whom are potential contributors). —David Levy13:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I never said anything about irrelevance. I do not have much patience however for new or anonymous users coming to the project who start demanding that something be done, especially if it's done in an uncivil tone. If you take a look at prior comments (not yours), you'll see what I'm talking about. Either way, in the interest of civility and constructive discussion I've disabled the rounded corners for the time being. -- sebmol?14:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thank you. Please keep the above points in mind when pondering any future decision regarding this feature. I realize that the rounded corners looked good on your computer, but the non-rounded corners look good on everyone's computer. While this isn't nearly as important as the articles' content, it is something that many people care about. —David Levy14:24, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
At the bottom of the main page the macro "Sisterprojects" included in curlicues states that "Wikiversity is run by the Wikimedia Foundation". This is incorrect. Wikiversity is "run" by its participants. The line should read that "Wikiversity is sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation or something similar. Mirwin04:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Oooh, wording controversies. Love it. Wikimedia provide hosting and financial sponsorship for the projects, and set out key policies that they must follow...ultimately, the Board of Trustees has final say over what happens (with respect to user behaviour, management, policies, etc.). So what's the correct term? robchurch | talk11:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
"hosted" works for me. I have not seen Wikimedia Foundation Board Members creating policy[6] for Wikiversity yet. Final veto over use of servers by a community that can always fork off is not exactly a traditional top down management like "runs" implies. Mirwin05:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
The learning projects seem to be developing nicely, but now they need people to man them. Once the main page is switched over, we should start working on some way of showcasing things like projects and/leassons. Right now, only the people who created the learning projects know how to get to them and where they are. --Rayc15:09, 25 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi all. I just want to add some Latin grammar notes and am finding this whole school, department, course, lesson thing just too confusing and complicated. What am I meant to do if I just want to add some content, pure and simple?
Navigate to the Wikiversity page that is closest to your topic of interest. Click on the edit button and then type [[new page name]] in the edit window; this will create a hypertext link to the new page. Click the "Save" button. Now find the red link you just created that says "new page name". Click on that link and start editing the new page. Type in your information. --JWSchmidt18:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
There are 326 registered users
