Dear all,
Wikiversity is a proposed Wikimedia project, based specifically around education and learning - the proposal to set up Wikiversity as a Wikimedia project is at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Modified_project_proposal. This proposal has been an attempt to address the fact that the last proposal (see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity) was not approved by the board (the background to this is summarised on the current proposal's page).
For the last three months or so, the proposal (which was already in development) has been extended and reworked by the Wikiversity subcommittee (see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity_subcommittee). The subcommittee is now pretty much satisfied that we have constructed a proposal and scope for the project which gives it the flexibility to develop, but also the clear rationale to exist as a separate project. I'm now in the process of negotiating this with the Special Projects Committee, hopefully to get it set up quite soon indeed :-).
In brief, the proposal is to: *Host multimedia learning materials for all levels (ie not just university) in all languages *Develop learning communities around these materials *Host research - possibly original research (though this will need to be discussed by its community)
There is more to the proposal and scope and, if you are interested, I would urge you to read the proposal and its related pages, which you can find through a navigational template at the top right of meta:Wikiversity pages. There is also a very basic mock-up of the front page of Wikiversity, geared towards the current proposal, at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Example.
One of the things the board last recommended was that the community be "joyful" about the proposal before setting up Wikiversity. So, this post is to gauge just how joyful people are about the proposal, what you think works and what doesn't, what you would change, add, remove, etc. I would like to use this thread to discuss what the best way forward for Wikiversity would be, so we can give it the best start we can.
Yours,
Cormac Lawler (m:User:Cormaggio) (on behalf of the Wikiversity subcommittee)
PS: Please feel free to post this message (or a modification of it) at appropriate places - I'm just posting this initially to foundation-l and textbook-l (even though it slightly duplicates a discussion already underway at the latter).