An interesting assignment, but the teacher made a major error by requiring this: "Choose two topics that are appropriate", requiring a NEW article. That might have worked 2 years ago when for example the article, [[Colorado]] was a new article. But now the experience is much more about making existing articles better.
I can understand why the teacher would make this a rule, though. It's much easier to grade.
I think a better assignment would be. Pick a Wikipedia article at least 10 editors have edited within the last month and make an edit which substantially improves the article.
I think in the future a better assignment might be to pick an article from the list of requested articles. Or maybe even just pick a red link.
Of course, I would question the ethics of a professor forcing his students to release their assignments under the GFDL in the first place. Is this even allowed under school policy?
Fred
Anthony
On Aug 24, 2004, at 8:01 AM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
An interesting assignment, but the teacher made a major error by requiring this: "Choose two topics that are appropriate", requiring a NEW article. That might have worked 2 years ago when for example the article, [[Colorado]] was a new article. But now the experience is much more about making existing articles better.
I can understand why the teacher would make this a rule, though. It's much easier to grade.
As someone intending to give his students a Wikipedia writing assignment in the spring, I would say that ease of grading is not really the most important point here.
I think in the future a better assignment might be to pick an article from the list of requested articles. Or maybe even just pick a red link.
My intended assignment is "Add 1000 words to Wikipedia."
Of course, I would question the ethics of a professor forcing his students to release their assignments under the GFDL in the first place. Is this even allowed under school policy?
Probably demanding that student work be released under the GFDL in general is not allowed. However, a single assignment to contribute to a specific project is very different. A lot of schools are big on having classes, particularly first year writing classes, apply the writing skills to a project other than a paper that will only ever be read by the professor. Wikipedia is a great choice for this.
Furthermore, it probably depends on the context. I'll be assigning the Wikipedia writing assignment in the course of a first year writing course focusing on intellectual property and copyleft. What was the Dartmouth professor assigning Wikipedia for?
-Snowspinner
Unfortunately, even though the class assignment required that the articles created by the students meet Wikipedia requirements, now that most of them have been listed on VfD, the instructor is trying to claim that they do meet our requirements. It seems if the vast majority of the articles have made it to VfD, then not only has the majority of the class failed the assignment, but the instructor doesn't understand the nature of Wikipedia. If the majority of a class fails an assignment, that has to say something about the instructor, as well.
RickK
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