Hi Cormac, Teemu<br><br>I agree with Teemu, although I wonder how successful such free forming would be in the Wikiversity? To my mind, the thing that makes Wikipedia successful in terms of participation and collaborative effort is that the project makes sense to anyone familiar with an encylcopedia. Obviously Wikipedia is far more than a mere encyclopedia, but with the basic brief understood - to create factual and informative articles for individual topics etc - then the collaboration can happen more readily.
<br><br>With the likes of Wikiversity, and even Wikibooks, the brief is far less clear and the structure of content or point of entry is even less clear. This results in a great many different interpretations of what the whole project should be, as well as the mini projects within it. None of this negates what Teemu says, in fact it so far supports his proposal that Wikiversity should abandon content production.
<br><br>I want to point to a number of articles and projects that I think collectively illustrate my opinion on the matter and propose models for the likes of Wikiversity.<br><br><ul><li><a href="http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich:_Deschooling_Society">
Deschooling Society</a> - a reading group in Wikiversity that is studying the work of Ivan Illich</li><li><a href="http://wikieducator.org/Otago_Polytechnic#About_Otago.27s_Educational_Resource_Developments">Otago Polytechnic's development structure in Wikieducator
</a> - An at-first difficult to understand model for structuring content in the Wikieducator project. The video may be useful to watch. The structure aims to find a balance between the encyclopedia structure that helps to make Wikipedia successful, and the individual contextualisation of content needed in educational efforts.
</li><li><a href="http://learnonline.wordpress.com/2007/01/31/the-gold-in-a-wiki-is-often-in-the-discussion-pages/">The gold in a wiki is often in the discussion pages</a> - A blog post pointing to various discussion about learner driven wikis as Teemu suggests
</li><li><a href="http://learnonline.wordpress.com/2007/02/16/wikiversity-wikieducator-please-join-and-make-wikilearner/">Wikiversity, Wikieducator, please join to make Wikilearner</a> - A blog post initially pleading for the two projects to join, but is now more in line with Temmu's call for a need for a space that is learner generated.
</li></ul><br>Hope I've added something to this important issue facing Wikiversity and Wikieducator. Sorry I have nothing to add to the international language issue/effort.<br><br>Regards<br>Leigh<br><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On Nov 14, 2007 11:03 AM, Teemu Leinonen <<a href="mailto:teemu.leinonen@taik.fi">teemu.leinonen@taik.fi</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Hi Cormac,<br><br>thank you for raising up this important topic in the list. I hope<br>this does not end-up to be a re-run of argumentation you and me<br>already have had.<br><br>Cormac Lawler kirjoitti 13.11.2007 kello 23:20:
<br><div class="Ih2E3d">> this has had the<br>> practical outcome that these communities have extended the scope of<br>> the Wikibooks project from what other Wikibooks projects are doing -<br>> in hosting lesson plans and pedagogic guidance for using these
<br>> textbooks in class. (This latter seems to be more suited to<br>> Wikiversity in my mind at least - is this also the same for you,<br>> and/or is it a problem?)<br><br></div>I think the whole Wikiversity should give-up the "content production"
<br>and focus on hosting communities of learners who want to do things<br>together. This way Wikiversity should have only good descriptions of<br>"learning projects", which are communities interested in to help each
<br>other to learn something. David Wiley's syllabus of Introduction to<br>Open Education class is a great example of this kind of use of a<br>wiki, here:<br><br><a href="http://www.opencontent.org/wiki/index.php" target="_blank">
http://www.opencontent.org/wiki/index.php</a>?<br>title=How_to_use_a_wiki_to_facilitate_learning<br><br>This way the Wikiversity pages should focus on to manage the<br>"learning projects", whereas the "learning content" would be there
<br>where they naturally belong to: in the other Wikimedia project's<br>sites, such as Wikibooks, Wikicommons, Wikipedia etc. These projects<br>are already there to have "educational content" in them. In the
<br>Wikiversity learning project pages there would be then of course<br>links to the content pages (Wikibooks etc.).<br><div class="Ih2E3d"><br>> Put another way: what does Wikiversity do (or intend to<br>> do) that Wikibooks can never do, as presently defined?
<br><br></div>Making a meaningful structure for "learning projects" and offering<br>them for people so that it is very easy to participate in them is<br>something Wikibooks probably will never do. I think Wikibooks mission
<br>is very clear: "to create a free collection of open-content textbooks".<br><br>The mission of the Wikiversity should then be: to create and run free<br>learning projects.<br><div class="Ih2E3d"><br>> So, the 'international' dimension here comes down to whether it is
<br>> possible - or useful - to define how Wikiversity and Wikibooks would<br>> relate _in_all_languages. If it is possible and/or useful, then it<br>> might be timely to actively construct such a map of how the two
<br>> projects relate (eg how much overlap is ok, what the scope of each is,<br>> and how they can share resources etc), and set out a framework for how<br>> different languages can be set up, defined and organised around
<br>> various activities.<br><br></div>I think the Wikiversity should be one, but multi-lingual. In<br>Wikiversity we should offer "learning projects" in many languages and<br>not build many parallel Wikiversitys in different languages. The
<br>languages could simple be defined with categories. This would promote<br>people to do some studies on Wikiversity also in some foreign<br>language, which is very "educational". :-)<br><font color="#888888"><br>
- Teemu<br></font><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"><br>_______________________________________________<br>Wikiversity-l mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org">Wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org
</a><br><a href="http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l" target="_blank">http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l</a><br></div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>--
<br>Leigh Blackall<br>+64(0)21736539<br>skype - leigh_blackall<br>SL - Leroy Goalpost<br><a href="http://learnonline.wordpress.com">http://learnonline.wordpress.com</a>