On 5/2/07, Leigh Blackall leighblackall@gmail.com wrote:
Hello Michael,
I'll pop my head up on this one and risk the heavy handed come backs that seem to get dealt in these forums...
I work for an educational institution. We specialise in vocational training, trades education and some degrees. I saw a potential with wikiversity and wikieducator where by we would offer up our training and educational resources to the wiki platforms, perhaps benefit from others editing it, translating it, extending it.. perhaps not. Main thing is that we had our resources out there for others to access and use, and for our students to access and use.
In my trial of Wikiversity, I started putting contact details for the facilitators we use for the course materials we put up. This was intended as a way for people to make contact with others who could help them with their studies. Of course, wikis being wikis - other people are able to put their contact details in as well, and there we would be creating a teaching and learning network around topic areas. Premise being, content is one thing, contact is where learning is enriched.
Unfortunately, listing contact details was seen as promotional activity on the wiki and was criticised by some Wikiversity people. I think this was because some of those contact details were associated with our educational institution - thus promoting our educational institution.
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Thanks Leigh,
To put this in context (as far as I know), this was based on one person's opinion - and I have more criticisms of the way you were criticised than of what you actually did. I really think there's much more to discuss about how to give people further opportunities to learn, and cutting people off from the context of where the materials come from is missing a real opportunity. Hmm, am I sensing from your email a perception of "heavy-handedness" in Wikiversity discourse? I'd be disappointed if that were the case, but I really would like to hear more about it (publicly or privately).
Cormac