Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Queens College Wikipedia Workshop 2017/Objectives

Lesson objectives: Through this workshop, faculty will learn to edit and critically examine Wikipedia articles in order to build connections between disciplinary conventions and the conventions of Wikipedia.

Key terms: Collaboration, media literacy, digital writing, neutral point of view, verifiability, no original research, encyclopedia, copyright, plagiarism, public scholarship

Outcome: Draft basic classroom assignment(s) using Wikipedia to teach discipline-specific writing conventions

Told not to use for students

• Information may not be verifiable
• Could be used as springboard

As a librarian

• Not supposed to be used -- however, it's a great starting point, but not a great ending-up point
• If you're doing a presentation, it's already condensed a lot of the information
• Useful for explaining what a reference work is for students who aren't familiar with traditional encyclopedia

As a student

• Teachers would say you could use it as a summation of thought, but not to use it in bibliography

Could be useful for:

• Looking at the Talk page
• Analyzing general presentation -- scanning images, contents -- what does "looking" mean?

We assume students use it, and then provide guidelines

Can't really have non-experts starting entries anymore

Pick a value from Wikipedia’s “core content policies” or “Five Pillars.” How does this values align with or diverge from values or practices in your own discipline?

Core Content Policies:

1. Neutral point of view (WP:NPOV)
2. Verifiability (WP:V)
3. No original research (WP:NOR)

Five Pillars:

1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia
2. Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view
3. Wikipedia is free content that anyone can use, edit, and distribute
4. Wikipedia's editors should treat each other with respect and civility
5. Wikipedia has no firm rules

Consider something that you're interested in and then reflect on how these align with your own values/research?

• We value original research
  • Could use to teach the idea of the thesis
• No neutral point of view
  • Students are expected to have a point of view
  • Even an annotated bibliography is supposed to have a point of view
  • Really there is no such thing as neutrality
• Free content
  • Does Wikipedia align with open access movement?
  • OER workshop tonight!
  • Trying to replace references in Wikipedia with open-access content

How can students use this?

• Information literacy: Scholarly conversation
  • Conflict over facts and what constitutes a fact
  • References: scholarly vs. popular sources -- how are they used?
• Who is editing something?
  • Twitter bot looks at whenever a page is edited from a legislator's office
  • History page

Is Wikipedia a tool or a resource?

• Students get general impression of a topic?

Find a Wikipedia article related to your area of expertise.

Analyze the article, the Talk page, and the History page.

Evaluate. How authoritative is the article? What debates are happening about it in the Talk page? How do those accord with or diverge from scholarly debates on the topic in your discipline? What elements of the article (content, info box, illustrations, references) would be most useful to a student in your discipline?