In fact I find the "good article" and "featured article" criteria very helpful, whether or not a class's aims are to enter their work for such reviews. Not least because they do deal directly with quantitative as well as qualitative measures, and they certainly quite explicitly address problems such as "inaccuracies, bias, contradictions, and missing topics." After all, the second criterion for an FA (at WP:WIAFA) is that it is "comprehensive"; the third that it is "a thorough and representative survey." At no point is it suggested that a featured article has to be *long* (indeed, there have been repeated discussions about brief featured articles on talk). In fact, the GA criteria provide a useful caution when they state that a good article should stay "focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail." I often find that, for instance with articles about literary works, there are whole chunks (usually plot summary) that need to be cut down, sometimes quite drastically. More generally, students focussed single-mindedly on bytes added, beyond being immediately tempted to copy-paste (frequently from dubious sources) are also unlikely to look out for errors and/or plagiarism etc. that already exist in the articles they are working on. In short, focussing single-mindedly on bytes contributed (as the WMF has repeatedly done in the past) in counterproductive and goes directly against Wikipedia's own criteria for what are (rightly) valued as its most important and valuable contributions. Take care Jon On Jan 28, 2014, at 5:42 PM, James Salsman <jsalsman(a)gmail.com> wrote: article criteria, bytes toward references added to un-sourced crucial statements, negative bytes reverted, and neutrally (e.g. no "points" for) other bytes added? scored up front, it will work out better than otherwise, whether the subsequent scoring criteria are good or poor. If it were up to me I would ask students to search for inaccuracies, bias, contradictions, and missing topics, and most of those things fit into a few of the good article criteria, but not very explicitly. las Americas Puebla. I agree that adding a lot of bytes doesn't necessarily contribute to the quality of an article. We have been working on the development of the nanotechnology entries in Spanish, since this topic is kinda new in developing countries but there's a lot of research in the last 20 - 30 years. One of our goals was to improve the quantity and quality of references, in order to provide little but accurate information rather than a lot of unreferenced data. This standpoint was well perceived by the Spanish Wikipedia community as the entries has not been deleted but improved by other Wikipedia users. https://mx.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proyectos:Programa_Educativo_UDLAP#Introducci… Spanish). The report isn't finished yet but it's illustrative about the importance of working toward reference quality instead of volume (bytes). domusaurea(a)gmail.com) escrito: happen. First of all, I thought about measuring bytes *only after* the qualitative part is assessed (kinda like publishing guidelines, which I'm trying to make them acquainted with). But I think the reason this could work is because at least half of the enrolled students have already worked with me in other previous classes with Wikipedia editing. My idea is to make them help the other students learn how to edit during the course, together with the ambassador. status, and they were very excited and proud ( https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genotdel, https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipa_de_Lencastre). This wasn't the main goal, but kept them engaged even months after the course. A Facebook group helped with continuous lively discussions - the students are always there, anyway. I'm also relying on word of mouth, which has actually been proven quite effective. ;) jon.beasley-murray(a)ubc.ca> wrote: by education projects, and it was (understandably) hugely controversial, not least given the problems that the program has had with plagiarism (most notoriously with the Pune project). success. wrote: doesn't necessarily equate to adding a lot of *value* to an article. On enwiki at least, it's probably very easy to inflate the bytecount by inserting superfluous templates and the like into an article, without actually adding any content. At most I'd recommend using it as a rough guide for students as to when an article may be ready, and then assess the articles qualitatively after that. domusaurea(a)gmail.com> wrote: bytes to evaluate the students' edits for my next course - together with content, of course. This came up because I noticed some students were editing as little as possible, and this time I want the whole group to start new articles from scratch. reasonable number for the minimum of bytes in the final article? _______________________________________________ Education mailing list Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education

In short, focussing single-mindedly on bytes contributed (as the WMF has repeatedly done in the past) in counterproductive and goes directly against Wikipedia's own criteria for what are (rightly) valued as its most important and valuable contributions.

Well, a little unfair perhaps. The education program was not a single thing, and I certainly acknowledge your own valuable contributions throughout, that consistently ensured (and continue to ensure) a more thoughtful approach to counteract the editcountitis and bytecountitis that was prevalent in other quarters. Still, there's no denying that the focus on quantity (seemingly at the expense of quality) has always been, and continues to be, one of the major sources of tension between the education program and the Wikipedia community. Hence there is good reason to think and talk in other ways about how to assess and encourage student work. Take care Jon On Jan 29, 2014, at 1:23 PM, Sage Ross <sross(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: has repeatedly done in the past) in counterproductive and goes directly against Wikipedia's own criteria for what are (rightly) valued as its most important and valuable contributions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Po… _______________________________________________ Education mailing list Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education

If you allow me, perhaps I should rephrase: ***After all requirements of quality are assessed and evaluated***, what would you consider a reasonable number for the minimum of bytes in the final article? Indeed, maybe this question overlaps with some of the criteria for GA/FA, but I also suppose they are not the same for all Wikipedias. Juliana. On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 9:01 PM, Jon Beasley-Murray <jon.beasley-murray(a)ubc.ca> wrote: Well, a little unfair perhaps. The education program was not a single thing, and I certainly acknowledge your own valuable contributions throughout, that consistently ensured (and continue to ensure) a more thoughtful approach to counteract the editcountitis and bytecountitis that was prevalent in other quarters. Still, there's no denying that the focus on quantity (seemingly at the expense of quality) has always been, and continues to be, one of the major sources of tension between the education program and the Wikipedia community. Hence there is good reason to think and talk in other ways about how to assess and encourage student work. Take care Jon On Jan 29, 2014, at 1:23 PM, Sage Ross <sross(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: _______________________________________________ Education mailing list Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education -- www.domusaurea.org _______________________________________________ Education mailing list Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education

Thank, Jon. I'd also love to know about the requirements of other Wikipedias, they may not be the same. James, I believe we always have some room for experimentation in grading. Countries are different, schools are different, courses are different, goals are different. Guidelines are great (aren't we just creating them right now?), but they should not be rules, IMHO. Juliana. On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 8:12 PM, Jon Beasley-Murray < jon.beasley-murray(a)ubc.ca&gt; wrote: -- www.domusaurea.org _______________________________________________ Education mailing list Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education

8 feb 2014 kl. 04:22 skrev "Teele Vaalma" &lt;teele.vaalma(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: Hello! I have been a Wikipedia assistant to a course in my local university for three years. The course is mandatory for third year students of natural and technological sciences (from computer technology through physics to biology) and is mainly about written expression in Estonian language (our native language) - how to write well about their respective fields and topics of research and study. One of their assignments is a Wikipedia article. Minimum length is 8000 characters (incl. spaces, excl. references, 4 or 5 pages on paper). Yes, characters, not bytes. They write their articles first in sandboxes. Guidelines are given to them how to write good wikiarticles and they should write well sourced and accurate texts with all necessary wiki markup. Then some assistants like me read their articles and give them feedback mostly on what is the goal and purpose of the course - if the text is understandable and language is correct. If they spot any dubious content (copypaste, errors) or unsourced paragraphs, they point it out too. Then students correct their articles. The minimum limit of characters is only there to give students somewhat equal assignments so they know how long is expected. I measure it by highlighting the text and copying it to Word which counts characters for me. Some students write barely enough and their text usually needs some more work anyway so I encourace them to add 500 characters or whatever is lacking. Most write a few thousand characters more, but I tell them to not exceed the minimum length too much and to concentrate on the quality. As they are studying technology and sciences, they are not really used to paying attention to language so sometimes they are grumpy and unpatient about me demanding understandable and well written text, but Wikipedia is really the best way to teach them that not only their fellow scientists need to understand them. 2014-02-01 James Salsman &lt;jsalsman(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: -- Teele Vaalma MTÜ Wikimedia Eesti teele.vaalma(a)gmail.com +372 5814 5381 _______________________________________________ Education mailing list Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education

Hi LiAnna, Has anyone published a set of actual Education Program student evaluation criteria and evaluations with which we could try the process described in http://www.pareonline.net/pdf/v17n4.pdf to get some idea of its suitability? Perhaps there are some existing criteria and evaluations that teachers or ambassadors have which could be quickly anonymized if they aren't already published? Developing a short robust evaluation criteria seems to be what the Education Program needs most, based on the discussions of problems and community friction. I thought that there were already some evaluation criteria published from a few years back, but I can't find them. The Factor Analysis routine mentioned in that PARE paper is the same as R's factanal() function. If this can't be published for volunteers to try, can you try it internally? Best regards, James Salsman