Dear fellow Wikipedians:
This is to let you know about my most recent article, co-authored with former student Kate Rattray. We’re especially proud of this piece, in which we make a pedagogical and public-service case for writing and editing Wikipedia articles for law school credit. The article has just been published in the Journal of Legal Education, which, appropriately, is an open-access journal. The current volume can be found here: http://jle.aals.org/home/. You can also read an abstract and download the article from my SSRN (Social Sciences Research Network) website, here: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2729241.
Yours truly,
John Kleefeld
Associate Professor, College of Law
University of Saskatchewan
15 Campus Drive
Saskatoon SK S7N 5A6
tel: (+1) 306.966.1039
email: john.kleefeld(a)usask.ca
skype: johnkleefeld
twitter: @johnkleefeld
web: http://law.usask.ca/find-people/faculty/kleefeld-john.php
Good evening, Professor Christie. My name is Lixxx235, and I'm a Wikipedia
editor and an Online Ambassador with the Wikipedia Education Program. (
userpage <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lixxx235>)
It's come to my attention (through a student's request for help via
Wikipedia's live chat) that you have given your students assignments
relating to editing Wikipedia. While the Wikipedia Education Program fully
supports such assignments, and endorses a number of courses at various
universities around the world, according to one of your students, an
assignment you've given seems to have students confused and is causing
submissions in violation of some Wikipedia policies and wasting volunteer
and student time. For example, this
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Fuel_controlled_fires_…>
is an entry one of your students tried to get help on from our live help
chat. This submission does not meet Wikipedia guidelines such as notability
policies, policies requiring verifiability of material, and policies
requiring a neutral point of view (NPOV) to be kept. In addition, it was
not in Wikipedia's standard format.
We'd love to get in touch with you. Please reply back to
lixxx235wikipedia(a)gmail.com and education(a)lists.wikimedia.org to see how we
can help you develop good assignments for editing Wikipedia and how we can
resolve some issues with your current assignment.
All the best,
Lixxx235
English Wikipedia
Dear all,
At the recent EduWiki conference in Serbia I presented a research piece on
the power of information literacy (and how our wiki programmes support it)
from the perspective of Wikimedia UK. I thought to share the resource here,
perhaps it will be a useful tool in your advocacy for the impact of our
education work, as a narrative to present the value of wiki workshop, or
serve as inspiration to do a similar project.
I'm also hosting a webinar next week if you'd like to hear me talk through
the report on *Wednesday 14th June 12pm UTC *
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/strengthening-civil-society-wikimedia-and-de…
Booklet:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_and_Democracy_-_Wikimedia…
(short version
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_and_Democracy_-_Wikimedia…
)
As a summary of the work, *Our main inquiry was to understand how improving
information literacy skills contributes to Wikimedia UK’s vision of a more
tolerant, informed and democratic society. Does our work increase
participants’ information literacy, and does this in turn lead to a more
engaged civil society? We reviewed the current understanding and frameworks
in the intersection of literacies, civic engagement and democratic
participation, to see how information literacy has been found to support
civic engagement. We then explored how Wikimedia UK’s work contributes to
civic disposition skills.*
Hope this sounds interesting to you all!
Daria
--
Daria Cybulska
Director of Programmes and Evaluation
+447803505170
*I work part time and my usual days are Mon, Thurs and Fri. *
<https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk/>
*Wikimedia UK* <https://wikimedia.org.uk/> is the national chapter for the
global Wikimedia open knowledge movement.
Follow us on Twitter <https://twitter.com/wikimediauk>, Facebook
<https://www.facebook.com/WikimediaUK>, LinkedIn
<https://www.linkedin.com/company/496119>, and Instagram
<https://www.instagram.com/wikimediauk/>.
Wikimedia UK is a registered charity in England and Wales No.1144513.
and Scotland
No. SC048644. Company Limited by Guarantee, Registration No. 6741827.