Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/CUNY, York College/Psychology Independent Study: Wikipedia (Spring 2015)/Timeline

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Timeline

Week 1: Reviewing Psychology methods

Most of you have been in my classes, so you should remember what I taught you about finding and evaluating information in Psychology. Below are links to my Youtube videos on these topics.

Wikipedia Basics

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, is an encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. It has many millions (!) of editors (Wikipedians), many of whom are students like you. The vast majority of them are volunteers who find editing this site to be an enjoyable experience, even a hobby. Therefore I hope you will enjoy this exercise and the course! After all, there are not many exercises that tell you to do something that over a million people think is 'fun'.

Being a Wikipedia editor is a social activity. You should learn how to "talk" to other Wikipedians via their talk pages, and you should expect to have Wikipedians help you. If someone contacts you, they are offering help; be grateful and use it! Watch this video to learn more about the social aspect and who these Wikipedians are.

Wikipedia:Tutorial is the best place to start your adventure with this wiki. Please familiarize yourself with instructions for students and if you have any questions, check the Wikipedia:FAQ/Editing or Help:Contents and if you cannot find what you are looking for, ask the friendly people at Wikipedia:Help desk - or just contact me.

The first thing you should do is create a user account create an account (video tutorial). You definitely need to have an account before attempting to do any wiki-related coursework (otherwise we will be unable to confirm if you have completed the exercise).

Due:2/4/15
 1. Bring to our meeting:
   A. A research article in Psychology.  Be prepared to defend that it is a research article.
   B. A literature review article in Psychology.  Be prepared to defend that it is a literature review article.
 2. By noon on 2/3, post on my talk page and leave a link to your userpage.

Week 3

Due: 2/11/14

1. Bring to our meeting:
   A. A research article in I/O Psychology.  Be prepared to defend that it is a research article and it is in I/O Psych.
   B. A literature review article in I/O Psychology.  Be prepared to defend that it is a literature review article and it is in I/O Psych.
2. By noon on 2/10, post on my talk page and leave a link to examples of:
   A. Your userpage
   B. 4 edits you made to non-Psychology Wikipedia pages.  Be prepared to describe how you went about doing the edit.

Week 4

2/18/14

By noon on 2/17: Post on my talk page a description of the improvements you made to your userpage based on my feedback.
By noon of 2/17: Review the link for the first Pillar at Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not. Sections 2 and 3 of this article are a list of 16 things Wikipedia is not. Write a reaction paper (~ 250 words): a. which "not" is the most expected and why do you think so; b. which "not" is the least expected and why do you think so; c. which "not" is the most confusing and why do you think so? Paste your reaction paper into the talk page for our class.
By noon of 2/17: Wikipedia has 3 core content policies: neutral point of view, verifiability and no original research. Wikipedia states that "Because these policies work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three". Write a reaction paper (~250 words). In it, define each core content policy and then describe how you interpret the quote about how the 3 work together. Paste your reaction paper into the talk page for our class.
Before our meeting on 2/18: Read the responses to number 2 & 3 from the other students. Be prepared to respond to them in our meeting. What questions do you have? Who do you agree with (and why), or who do you disagree with (and why)? Has anyone's responses given you a new and interesting idea? Bring notes.

Week 5

2/25/14

1. If I asked you to do so on your talk page, please make 3 more non-psych article edits. These should add at least 3 lines of new material to the article.

List the edits on my talk page.

2. Go back to your original edits from the Week 3 assignment. Check to see if they have been re-edited.

If so, on my talk page, describe what happened and if you understand why the re-edit occurred.

3A. Read Respected Secondary Sources, Biomedical jouranals, &Secondary and Tertiary Sources ('biomedical articles' is the closest match on Wikipedia to Psych articles).

3B. Apply what you have read to the two articles you presented in week 3 (or if the articles you submitted were not correct, a new research article in I/O psych and a new lit review in I/O Psych).

Apply the Wikipedia criteria of verifiable, primary and secondary to each.

Do any parts of either article fall under a different Wikipedia classification?

Summarize in a reaction paper. Post the paper on our class's talk page by noon 2/24.

4. Read the other students' reaction papers and prepare to discuss on Tuesday.

Week 6

3/4/14

1. Identify an I/O Psych topic Wikipedia article which has tags identifying problems. Fix those problems.

2. Visit the Wikipedia page on Industrial & Organizational Assessment. Identify 5-10 improvements. Consult Wikipedia policy guidelines when appropriate. Consult external content (I/O Psych) sources.

3. Post on my talk page (by Monday noon) the name of the article you improved in #1. On your user page or in a sandbox, list and describe your improvements in #2.

4. Read and review the improvements the other students made for #1. Check the page history to see what they did. Be supportive when necessary and be critical when necessary. Bring these to our meeting. Visit the user page for each student and review their suggested improvements for #2. Check and "proofread" their suggestions by going to the page and going to Wikipedia guidelines. Bring your proofreading notes to our meeting.

5. Before 3/1/14, submit an abstract to present a poster at this year's York College Research Day. You will need to work jointly on this and I will need to approve your title and abstract by Thursday night.

Week 7

1. Finish fixing the problems with the article you individually selected from last week and remove the improvement tags. Be prepared to describe what you did to the group next week.

2. Industrial & Organizational Assessment

Individually

A. Create 5 links from other articles to this page. Leave a message on my talk page showing me the links.

B. Create 5 links in this article to other Wikipedia articles.

As a group (coordinate on your talk pages and the article's talk page)

I. Identify everything which needs a citation. Provide citation from Wikipedia-approvable peer-reviewed sources.

II. Before next Tuesday I expect to see significant improvement in the article. Use Wikipedia resources (such as Wikipedia:WikiProject_Guild_of_Copy_Editors/How_to) as a guide.

I would like to see an outline of the changes you plan to make before you do start editing. This outline is to reflect an understanding of I/O assessment (use my slides/use the textbook).

III. Be prepared to present your work to me next Tuesday.

Today (3/11) is actually Week 7

1. Finish fixing the problems I mentioned in our meeting about the Industrial & Organizational Assessment page.

2. Read the Wikipedia style manual and the article about ledes. Incorporate this information into the Industrial & Organizational Assessment page.

3. We need to radically re-write the Industrial & Organizational Assessment page. Individually, find peer-reviewed or trustworthy Psychological sources to help us. I would expect 3-4 sources per student.

4. Create a new stub article in Wikipedia on a topic in I/O Psych. (Spoiler alert: you'll be improving it so choose wisely)

Week 11 - 4/8

We will catch up on our articles and talk about the poster for Research Day.

Week 12 - 4/23

I'm, in general, concerned about the definition of your stub topics. So, in addition to building your stubs, I'd like you to submit this by 4/23 (place your response in a sandbox off your user page and leave a message for me with the link):

Let's look at what Wikipedia has to say about topics.

In Wikipedia:Inclusion_criteria several criteria are listed but these three seem important to me:

Does other information provide needed context?
Do related topics provide needed context?
What sourcing is available now?

In Wikipedia:Out_of_scope#Identifying_the_scope this is suggested: Looking at what scopes other encyclopedias have chosen can often be useful.

So for 4/23 I'd like you to:

1. Read the sections on:

Does other information provide needed context?
Do related topics provide needed context?
What sourcing is available now?

For each, present the case (and examples to support it) both pro and con your article existing separately.

2. Look for (paper) encyclopedia articles on your topic (or most likely, sections from review articles or the Annual Review). If you can't find your topic, how close can you get? Scan pages and email them to me.

Add topic