Methods
There are four main methods to organize projects in assigning Wikipedia articles as coursework to students. Wikis are organized in different namespaces and a reciprocity of security and discourse allows to choose the right space for your project. The four main options are:
- Use a separate Wiki, organized by your own institution. You can check the discourse and you have the greatest control of your project but you lose open discourse, community support and risk a lot of problems in the export phase. To create content will be easy but to integrate them need a lot of technical and copyright support.
- Create the content in the user namespace. Every account on a Wikimedia project has his own space and you can use this option to work on articles beside the conventions. Your facilitators can organize a controlled discourse and copyright control without the problems of export phases.
- Work with a template. If you want more discourse and believe that your students should handle the same regulates and discourse like every Wikipedian, you can work in the main space. Use a template to mark the articles as under construction of your project.
- If you want no additional security, don't use the template and your students will work in the open discourse of the encyclopaedia everyone can edit.
It will be useful for all variants to coordinate the Wikipedia activities on a central page. Such a system is more transparent than an office-organized project for the community, and you can control the discourse and interaction between our students and the supporters or between your students, if you wish to organize team work on one article. The facilitator can establish and manage a rating system of the content related discussion sections to ensure clarity and control benchmarks without community related deadlines (Example).
Tell people about our vision – Show your audience the numbers – Tell people how you have benefited from contributing to Wikipedia – Tell people why Wikipedia needs their help – Some themes that might be interesting to build your presentation around
Building a content partnership with a cultural institution in a nutshell – Don't liberate, help GLAMs to emancipate content
Create a timetable for your project – Recruit facilitators – Goals for your students – Teach important basics about Wikipedia – Invite a public speaker
Use eye-catchers to attract attention – Interact with the visitors