Jon wrote:
I was interested to see Cormac ask us what we thought
of the latest Wikiversity proposal.
I confess I still, after all this time, am unsure what it is: the name suggests that it is
meant
to be for wiki-based university-level learning, but I don't think that's right.
And if it's not
right, at the very least a new name would be advisable.
The name is fine. Ever see a group of high school students or grade
schoolers walking around or through facilities on campus ogling how it
happens at the big time? The name will not scare all students in any
specific segment and peer encouragement, googling, and link following
is likely to be the major source of new users.
At the moment we intend to provide universal educational coverage. As
participants start creating content we will migrate towards methods and
content that is useful to people of all ages and categories who have
access to the web. Obviously it will fill in as people are interested
in creating content to study so it will be patchy for a while.
I would also like to question the relationship between Wikiversity and Wikibooks, as it
really
is time for the separate Wikiversity project to leave Wikibooks module namespace behind -
I believe that would leave Wikibooks with the Wikiversity textbooks, which it would then
be able to integrate into its own systems and categorisations. Any Wikiversity project
pages could be moved to the Wikibooks namespace - although MetaWiki or the incubator
would seem to be better places.
I think this move is important. As some of you will be aware, I see the future of
Wikibooks
as having a strong core set of textbooks suitable for school exams surrounded by many
other good textbooks for other types of studying. I am splitting these up into the
following
(and bear in mind that a textbook may fall within none or more than one of these):
Wikijunior (for textbooks for 8 to 12 year olds)
Wikistudy (for textbooks for exams typically first sat at ages 15 to 19)
Wikiversity (or Wikiuniversity) (for university-level learning)
Wikiprofessional (for textbooks for professionals)
Wikilearn (for textbooks for adult learning)
Wikids (if we ever have books for under 8s)
These categorisations would, of course, sit alongside the current "by subject"
style bookshelves.
The above was a common desire from a lot of people reviewing and
participating in the proposal writing.
Obviously where we go depends on the actual participants at Wikiversity.
Personally I have no intention on relying on an external community
unless they are very user friendly and policies that make sense.
Since any low engineering course I was ever exposed to had shelves of
books at the University library dedicated to different and overlapping
pieces of the puzzle and often the Instructor specified a couple of
books, some of which were not "textbooks" but merely "reference" books
on a given topic not well treated in his chosen "textbook"; I really do
not see how any independent groups not organized as courses and therefor
more, not less, diverse than college course can rely exclusively if at
all on Wikibooks.
I have outlined a couple a ways that policy conflicts can cause
problems unless specific procedures are designed to avoid them when
moving "textbooks" or study materals between wikis without the express
permission and authorization from the authors of the Wikiversity
materials attempting to create learning trails for those who will follow.
Likely it will be an ongoing debate as there were advocates of this
specified cookie cutter approach from most of the existing wikimedia
communities attempting, in my view, to guarantee captive markets and
limited competition for materials attractive to users and potential
future participants and contributors.
By all means checkout Wikiversity proposal on meta and provide some
comments. It has gotten rather small and inactive there lately and
needs some encouragement.
It is accessible from the Wikiversity tab on Wikibooks. Then towards
the bottom click on the proposal at meta link.
regards,
lazyquasar