Thanks Juan for this all too rare insight into the status of other language
wikiversities. ABD puts up a defence for English Wikiversity which I'd
support.
I thought you'd be interested in noticing a small corner on English
Wikiversity where original research is taking place. There is my own, where
I'm enjoying using the wiki to support and document a process of data
collection to drafting, then peer review and then redrafting. I draw
inspiration from wikinews for this.
There is also the use of English Wikiversity by the university of Canberra,
where I'm based, and UCNISS, a teaching and research institute based at the
university Canberra. Their work is focused on sport and physical activity. I
am employed by them to build their presence across social media like
wikiversity.
Unfortunately, I have encountered a few wikimedia foundation people who see
this sort of activity as little more than "hosting", revealing a disturbing
frame of view toward wikiversity purpose, along the lines of what ABD points
out. I can only hope enough time will be given for these and other examples
WITHIN English Wikiversity to mature and show something.
On Jul 21, 2011 3:16 AM, "Abd ulRahman Lomax" <abdlomax(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
Thanks, Juan, interesting. En.wv largely represents a
view that education
is
about people and what people do, not just about
content. Education as pure
content is academically discredited in the world of
education, there has
come to
be much more concern about process, learning as
process, a process that
continues, life-long, if people learn how to learn, which includes
exploration
and investigation, not merely imbibing what has been
predigested by
someone
else.
On En.wv, the forces toward reduction of education to content, which,
then, of
course, must be "correct" and
"approved," are active, but do not dominate.
Wikiversity, at least en with which I'm familiar, is the only WMF wiki
where
discussion of topics is actually encouraged. You can
be blocked on
Wikipedia for
trying to discuss an article topic on the Talk page
there, and sometimes
even
for trying to discuss in user space.
One of the oddities I've seen is that, on Talk:Cold fusion it is actually
recommended that if you want to discuss the topic, you use a mailing list
that
focuses on fringe and weird science, the vortex list,
but attempts to link
to
the Wikiversity resource, where discussion can
actually help develop
learning
resources, have been interdicted, on the argument that
Wikiversity is
"self-published."
Definnitely, there is work to do letting Wikipedians know about
Wikiversity. It
would be ideal to suggest to Wikipedians that if they
want to talk about
and
learn about the topic intereactively, that Wikiversity
is open for this,
instead
of what usually happens: they are told to go away.
In real universities, around the world, and for centuries, what might be
called
"fringe" views are studied, developed,
researched, and taught, as such.
Individual professors express their opinions and do original research, and
students do the same, in course work and for degree
dissertations and
papers.
I can easily see a grading system as being possible, and overall
neutrality
policy suggests that poor work should not be
prominent, but it takes a lot
of
work to design and implement some overall system.
En.wikiversity is still
in
very primitive condition.