Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/Cornell University/Online Communities (Fall 2013)/Course description

Course description

Online communities are an important part of how we work, learn, and socialize. But how are they designed? What are they really good for? What do people do there? Why are some communities more successful than others? What are the key issues in this field of research? This course covers topics and issues of online communities from both a design perspective and a social-science perspective, demonstrating them through a variety of types of online communities.

Goals

At the completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Understand important features of interactions in online communities,
• Critically analyze interactions in online communities,
• Understand, identify, and respond to design issues of online communities, and
• Understand the research issues in this field.

Additional accomplishments

• Contribute an article to Wikipedia
• Complete a research project start-to-finish
• Improve your teamwork skills

Wikipedia assignment

In the first half of the semester, you will be working with two other students to majorly edit a Wikipedia article. The purpose of this assignment is to learn and understand the backbone of how the Wikipedia community works as an example of an active, vibrant, and successful online community. This project will involve:

• Creating a Wikipedia account and becoming familiar with the Wikipedia editors community
• Proposing an underdeveloped article to expand and majorly edit
• Researching the topic of the article and finding reliable resources for a high-quality article
• Adding content to the article including text, non-copyrighted multimedia, and resources, organizing the article, styling it with tables, adding an infobox, linking it to other relevant articles and to external pages, etc.
• Learning and adhering to the Wikipedia editing policies, standards, and norms
• Engaging in discussions with other Wikipedia editors about the content and form of the article
• Reflecting on the process of becoming part of the Wikipedia community

Your work in this project will be evaluated based on the quality, quantity and depth of the article you have edited, your interactions on talk pages and involvement with the Wikipedia community, and following Wikipedia’s writing standards.

(Click to return to your main course page and continue.)