Wikipedia:Writing Wikipedia Articles course/February 2014
 | This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference. It was a course on how to write a Wikipedia article that last ran in 2017. |
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Writing Wikipedia Articles: The Basics and Beyond | 
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| a free six week course |
| February–March 2014 |
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| We will run our course in conjunction with a graduate course at the University of Mississippi: Topics in Higher Education/Open Educational Resources and Practices (Edhe 670). Some students will be enrolled at the university, but the course is open to all. (Students may wish to join us for an additional open course immediately preceding this one, running February 5 to 19: Open Content Licensing for Educators. This is entirely optional!) Exact dates for the course will be announced soon! |
| How to enroll |
After each step, be sure to come back to this page! Here's a shortcut: enwp.org/WP:WIKISOO/NOW
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Writing Wikipedia Articles is a free six-week course offered in collaboration with the School of Open, and conducted (mostly!) here on Wikipedia.
Please come back to this page after February 1 for information about the first class session! You may wish to use the Wikipedia shortcut for this page: WP:WIKISOO/NOW, or bookmark this page in your web browser.
The course will begin between February 20 and 27; exact class dates and times will be announced shortly. It will be conducted during the day in North America's Central Time Zone.
How it works (overview)
The page you are currently looking at is our course's "home page".
| Several easy ways to get back to this home page |
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Finally, you can put the shortcut on a Wikipedia page -- like your user page -- for easy reference! We'll cover this in the first class. |
Each week, visit the class page for that week, linked in the #Course calendar section above. That will tell you everything you need to know for that week: what we'll cover in the session, what the homework is, and links to informative videos and text documents. You can get to each week's class page from the "navigation box" at the very bottom of this page. Watch for updates on this page too -- we'll be adding information throughout the course to help you all keep in touch and move through your projects!
We conduct weekly classes and lab sessions using the webinar software Blackboard Collaborate (details below).
The central place to interact with us, and with other students, is the course's "talk page" (which we share with WikiProject Open). You can always get there by typing the shortcut WT:OPEN into the Wikipedia search bar; or from most of our course pages, you can click "talk" near the upper left corner of the screen.
For those who use Twitter or other social media, we use the hashtag #WIKISOO (which stands for Wikipedia/School of Open), and we mainly tweet from the account @CommOER. Students will be working in small teams, and you can decide within your team if you wish to use additional tools like Google Hangout, IRC, etc.
Tools we use for live weekly classes & labs
Each week you will find a link to connect with Blackboard Collaborate, the webinar tool we use to conduct our classes, at the top of that week's wiki page.
You'll need a Mac, Windows, or Linux-based computer; an up-to-date version of Java; headphones (or speakers) and microphone (optional, but desirable); and a reliable internet connection (wired Ethernet connection if available).
If you'd like to learn more about Blackboard Collaborate now, these may help: Blackboard Collaborate overview • Getting Started for Participants Quick Reference Guide (PDF) • Blackboard Collaborate Support Portal (with OS and Java check!)
We'll also use Etherpad during the class and lab to take collaborative notes.
Student teams
One of your first tasks in this class will be to join a team, and introduce yourself! Instructions will be provided before the first class. (Be sure to take the survey and enroll properly in the course, so we know how to contact you!) Teams will consist of four people. If students come and go, we might adjust, trying to keep them within about 3–5 people.
You will interact with your team every week between classes. This may be as short as sending them a brief note to say what article(s) you worked on, or to share why something you read was interesting or worthwhile. Some students will find their teams become highly active, while for others they are just a touchstone for your homework assignments; please feel free to experiment, find what works for you, and report back!
Lab sessions, getting help, and working together
We offer weekly lab sessions for homework, asking questions, presenting ideas, etc. These are less structured than the regular class. We highly recommend that you attend; students in previous classes have found a lot of value in these sessions. Homework may be taken on in your own time, but the labs are a great opportunity for peer support and extra help. Labs are held at the same time of day as our class sessions, on Thursdays. Course instructors Pete and Sara will be online for (at minimum) one hour, and we invite students to continue working together following the scheduled session.
Our main tool is Blackboard Collaborate, same as our class sessions: j.mp/wikiSOOconf. During lab we also use an etherpad page for shared note-taking.
If you have a question or comment during the week, please post it on our class talk page. This is our main tool for ongoing discussions.
Please feel free to use other communication channels, especially within your team! Some tools that have worked well with our course's previous rounds:
- Twitter (hashtag #WIKISOO)
- Freenode IRC, in the #oer channel
- Skype
- Google Hangout
- Jitsi
Grading
Students are expected to work toward the WikiSOO Burba Badge. To earn the badge, there are two requirements:
- Do one of the following:
- Start a new Wikipedia article, and bring it to at least "Start" class on the Wikipedia quality scale; or
- Improve an existing Wikipedia article at least one level on the quality scale.
- Make 200 or more edits to Wikipedia
Past students have done some incredible work, and been awarded the WikiSOO Burba Badge for the efforts. Some examples include:
- open educational resources
- PhET Interactive Simulations
- Recursos educativos abiertos (Spanish article about OER)