Education/Countries/Bulgaria/Expertise

Preparation for the course

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  1. Does the course take into account the different specifics of the university/topic/discipline:
    • Full-time/distant learning?
    • Compulsory/free course?
    • B.Sc. or M.Sc.? In which year are the students (1, 2, 3, 4, mixed)
    • The students' profile - humanitarian, natural sciences, ...
    • ...
  2. The lector's motivation?
    • The lector is a Wikipedian
      • ...
    • The lector is not a Wikipedian, but
      • wants to vary his/her teaching by using new practices
      • searches for outside help for teaching/grading
      • ...
  3. The students' motivation?
    • Is the fulfillment of the task compulsory or not?
    • Does the fulfillment of the task lead to a grade?
      • the task on Wikipedia makes the whole grade
      • the task on Wikipedia is a part of the grade (bonus)
      • the task on Wikipedia is not a part of the grade
    • Other kinds of motivation:
      • certificate,
      • the lector will recommend the student, e.g.:
        • for a job or a trainee application
        • for a grant or a prize application
        • for a study abroad, ...
      • possibility of putting the information in a CV, online identity
      • ...
  4. What will the task be?
    • Writing new articles
    • Editing existing articles
    • Adding audio/video content
    • Creation of templates, programming of scripts
    • Writing an essay, a report, an interview ..., connected to Wikipedia
    • Analysis of a topic, connected to Wikipedia, e.g.:
      • analysis of a law case,
      • creation of a communication strategy,
      • analysis of the usage possibilities of Mediawiki in some respect,
      • analysis of social attitude towards Wikipedia,
      • risk analysis on a question, connected with wiki/Wikipedia
    • ...
  5. Aims:
    • What is the aim of the project?
      • Are there concrete measurable aims:
        • number of new articles,
        • number of better made articles,
        • number of images, etc.?
      • Is the use defined?
        • Use for the students?
        • Use for the lector?
        • Use for Wikipedia?
        • Use for the topic of the problem?
      • Are the knowledge and abilities which the students will gain as a result of the course defined?
        • Are there such knowledge and abilities which the students would gain or develop because of the tasks solved on Wikipedia?
  6. Topics of the tasks
    • Only from the field of the taught discipline
    • Part of the task is from the field of the discipline, another is free to choose
    • Topics are completely free to choose
  7. Does the course take into account the current state of the Wikipedia content in the language to be written in:
    • Are there articles from the field of the discipline?
      • In the language to be written in
      • In other languages
    • Are there well written articles from the field of the discipline, which can be taken as an example/pattern?
      • In the language to be written in
      • In other languages
    • Is there a potential for generating authors' illustrating materials?
    • ...
  8. Has the lector created a list of topics from the taught discipline?
    • Do students have the right to expand the list with topics, which they have chosen?
    • Are the topics assigned to individual students or do the students have the right to choose?
    • Do articles count as bonuses?
  9. Individual or group work?
    • The work on the task on Wikipedia is individual
    • The work on the task on Wikipedia is done in a group
    • Students can choose
  10. Preparation of the Wikipedia environment:
    • Is a coordinating article for the university Wikiproject prepared?
    • Do Wikipedian mentors take part in the project?
    • Is there information on Village pump that such a course will take place?
  11. List of criteria based on which articles created during the course will be graded
    • Has the meaning and importance of each criterion been explained?
    • Is there a requirement about the length or completeness of the articles? How is this requirement motivated?
  12. Timeline:
    • How much time is provided for the completion of the tasks?
      • Does it take into account the students' knowledge?
      • Does it take into account their other tasks in the same discipline?
      • Does it take into account the time they have to spend learning other disciplines in the same time frame?
      • It is not necessary that too much time is given?
    • Are foreign influences which can hinder the timeline taken into consideration?
      • Bank holidays, weekends
      • University events
      • Other obligations of the lector
      • Other obligations of the students
    • Are the lector and the wikimentors given enough time?
      • To check and critically grade the results of the work,
      • To give feedback to the students,
      • To wait for the students' feedback and
      • Grade their performance again.
  13. Has an introductory lecture been given to the students?
    • Do they show interest, do they answer questions, the they ask questions?
    • Have notability criteria been explained?
    • Have the rules about content and sources been explained: Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources, Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Notability
    • Have the requirements concerning the structure of articles been explained?
    • Have the requirements concerning encyclopedic writing style been explained?
    • Have the terms of usage of Wikipedia been explained, as well as the license under which the students contribute to Wikipedia?
      • If students make a choice not to donate their work under free license, they cannot be pushed to do it. They have to have the option to finish their course outside of Wikipedia
  14. Survey at the beginning of the course?

Carrying out the course

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  1. Students sign up and enrol the course via the course coordination wiki page
    • Has been there an explanation why and how to open wiki account?
    • That one account shall be used by one student only?
    • That contributions under IP will not to be taken into consideration?
    • Have they enter in the coordination page their signature and assigned/chosen topic of writing?
    • Are the students aware of their user talk page and their watchlist?
  2. Communicating with students
    • Where does the communication take place?
      • On Wikipedia discussion pages
      • Mailing list
      • Group in a social network
      • University's e-learning platform (Moodle, …)
      • Face to face
    • Have all students been welcomed on their user talk pages?
    • Are the students' contributions subject of specific critical commentary? Are they directed to help pages, where they can read more about any problem they may face during the wiki course?
      • Is there any reply from the students?
      • Is there any respective reaction, i.e. revising the articles according to the mentors' and teacher's comments?
    • Do the students get encouragement?
      • Commentary when they performed well?
      • Are they given "thank"-s?
      • Barnstar, cupcake on the user/talk page or any other form of visual communication?
  3. Is there an interim progress report being maintained?
    • Is it reported somewhere? Publicly or individually for each student?
    • What are the selected criteria for evaluation of the students' contributions?
      • Are there specific criteria, relevant to the studied subject? Examples:
        • Audiovisual content that can be created under free license?,
        • Templates that must be obligatory used?,
        • Interwiki links, ...
    • How has the evaluation workload been distributed among the teacher and the involved wiki mentors?
      • Example:
Commitment Teacher Wikimentor(s)
Assessment of the reliability of the used sources Х
Assessment of the factual precision of the article w.r.t. the cited sources X
Assessment of the exhaustiveness / article volume, w.r.t. the topic scope X
Check for copyright violations X X
Assessment of the neutral {unbiased} presentation of the content X X
Assessment of the encyclopaedic style of writing Х Х
Assessment of the layout, categories, links, interwiki links, illustrations Х
Assessment of other student's edits (in talk pages, related pages, Wikimedia Commons, etc.) X
      • When and how do the teacher and the mentors communicate with each other?
  1. What problems do students face during the execution of the assignment?
    • Technical difficulties
    • Difficulties, related to access to sources
    • Difficulties, related to communicating content from the sources
    • Inability to formulate a definition
    • Access to illustrative content
  2. What sorts of problems do students generate?
    • Copyright violations
    • Machine translations
    • Rude attitude and strong language to other editors
    • ...
  3. What sanctions are provided for students who violate the course rules?
  4. Has the scheduled time frame been enough for accomplishment of all the assignments?

Course completion

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  1. What are the results from the wiki course? Do they correspond to the preliminary expectations and goals?
  2. Are the evaluations of the students' acquired knowledge and skills adequate?
    • If the students had not worked on assignments in Wikipedia, and had been examined in another way, would they obtain the same marks?
  3. Has the students' feedback about their impressions from Wikipedia and the course been requested / obtained?
    • What ideas for improvements of the processes of preparing and carrying out the course have occurred as a result if the course?
      • Proposed by students
      • Proposed by the teacher
      • Proposed by the wiki mentor(s)
    • Would the students remain as long-term Wikimedia contributors? If yes, why so? If not, why not?
  4. Has there been a case when the lecturer was asked to give a recommendation letter that includes a review of the student's contribution to Wikipedia?