Hi,
I want to raise an important (and very frequently-asked) question: How do Wikiversity and Wikibooks relate to eachother (and within this: do they overlap unnecessarily, and how might they be aligned most productively)? I'm asking this as an *international* question (ie as it relates to present and future projects), although perhaps, in asking this, we could ask: in what ways might different language communities deal differently with these definitions and distinctions? (And yes, I also realise this is several questions, and that there are a few more to come. :-))
The context of this is that there are some Wikibooks communities that seem to want to hold off on creating a new Wikiversity, as well as there being some people who want to clarify the distinction between the projects before setting up new ones. On the former, in some cases (or at least, in the Dutch, from what I gather), this has had the practical outcome that these communities have extended the scope of the Wikibooks project from what other Wikibooks projects are doing - in hosting lesson plans and pedagogic guidance for using these textbooks in class. (This latter seems to be more suited to Wikiversity in my mind at least - is this also the same for you, and/or is it a problem?) But the larger question is: can different languages define differently what Wikiversity and Wikibooks do, or can a Wikiversity be effectively subsumed in Wikibooks (or even the other way around)? Put another way: what does Wikiversity do (or intend to do) that Wikibooks can never do, as presently defined?
So, the 'international' dimension here comes down to whether it is possible - or useful - to define how Wikiversity and Wikibooks would relate _in_all_languages. If it is possible and/or useful, then it might be timely to actively construct such a map of how the two projects relate (eg how much overlap is ok, what the scope of each is, and how they can share resources etc), and set out a framework for how different languages can be set up, defined and organised around various activities.
I'd really welcome any comments on anything here that sparks your imagination, or that speaks to your experience.
Thanks,
Cormac [[:v:en:User:Cormaggio]]
Hi Cormac,
thank you for raising up this important topic in the list. I hope this does not end-up to be a re-run of argumentation you and me already have had.
Cormac Lawler kirjoitti 13.11.2007 kello 23:20:
this has had the practical outcome that these communities have extended the scope of the Wikibooks project from what other Wikibooks projects are doing - in hosting lesson plans and pedagogic guidance for using these textbooks in class. (This latter seems to be more suited to Wikiversity in my mind at least - is this also the same for you, and/or is it a problem?)
I think the whole Wikiversity should give-up the "content production" and focus on hosting communities of learners who want to do things together. This way Wikiversity should have only good descriptions of "learning projects", which are communities interested in to help each other to learn something. David Wiley's syllabus of Introduction to Open Education class is a great example of this kind of use of a wiki, here:
http://www.opencontent.org/wiki/index.php? title=How_to_use_a_wiki_to_facilitate_learning
This way the Wikiversity pages should focus on to manage the "learning projects", whereas the "learning content" would be there where they naturally belong to: in the other Wikimedia project's sites, such as Wikibooks, Wikicommons, Wikipedia etc. These projects are already there to have "educational content" in them. In the Wikiversity learning project pages there would be then of course links to the content pages (Wikibooks etc.).
Put another way: what does Wikiversity do (or intend to do) that Wikibooks can never do, as presently defined?
Making a meaningful structure for "learning projects" and offering them for people so that it is very easy to participate in them is something Wikibooks probably will never do. I think Wikibooks mission is very clear: "to create a free collection of open-content textbooks".
The mission of the Wikiversity should then be: to create and run free learning projects.
So, the 'international' dimension here comes down to whether it is possible - or useful - to define how Wikiversity and Wikibooks would relate _in_all_languages. If it is possible and/or useful, then it might be timely to actively construct such a map of how the two projects relate (eg how much overlap is ok, what the scope of each is, and how they can share resources etc), and set out a framework for how different languages can be set up, defined and organised around various activities.
I think the Wikiversity should be one, but multi-lingual. In Wikiversity we should offer "learning projects" in many languages and not build many parallel Wikiversitys in different languages. The languages could simple be defined with categories. This would promote people to do some studies on Wikiversity also in some foreign language, which is very "educational". :-)
- Teemu
Hi Cormac, Teemu
I agree with Teemu, although I wonder how successful such free forming would be in the Wikiversity? To my mind, the thing that makes Wikipedia successful in terms of participation and collaborative effort is that the project makes sense to anyone familiar with an encylcopedia. Obviously Wikipedia is far more than a mere encyclopedia, but with the basic brief understood - to create factual and informative articles for individual topics etc - then the collaboration can happen more readily.
With the likes of Wikiversity, and even Wikibooks, the brief is far less clear and the structure of content or point of entry is even less clear. This results in a great many different interpretations of what the whole project should be, as well as the mini projects within it. None of this negates what Teemu says, in fact it so far supports his proposal that Wikiversity should abandon content production.
I want to point to a number of articles and projects that I think collectively illustrate my opinion on the matter and propose models for the likes of Wikiversity.
- Deschooling Societyhttp://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich:_Deschooling_Society- a reading group in Wikiversity that is studying the work of Ivan Illich - Otago Polytechnic's development structure in Wikieducatorhttp://wikieducator.org/Otago_Polytechnic#About_Otago.27s_Educational_Resource_Developments- An at-first difficult to understand model for structuring content in the Wikieducator project. The video may be useful to watch. The structure aims to find a balance between the encyclopedia structure that helps to make Wikipedia successful, and the individual contextualisation of content needed in educational efforts. - The gold in a wiki is often in the discussion pageshttp://learnonline.wordpress.com/2007/01/31/the-gold-in-a-wiki-is-often-in-the-discussion-pages/- A blog post pointing to various discussion about learner driven wikis as Teemu suggests - Wikiversity, Wikieducator, please join to make Wikilearnerhttp://learnonline.wordpress.com/2007/02/16/wikiversity-wikieducator-please-join-and-make-wikilearner/- A blog post initially pleading for the two projects to join, but is now more in line with Temmu's call for a need for a space that is learner generated.
Hope I've added something to this important issue facing Wikiversity and Wikieducator. Sorry I have nothing to add to the international language issue/effort.
Regards Leigh
On Nov 14, 2007 11:03 AM, Teemu Leinonen teemu.leinonen@taik.fi wrote:
Hi Cormac,
thank you for raising up this important topic in the list. I hope this does not end-up to be a re-run of argumentation you and me already have had.
Cormac Lawler kirjoitti 13.11.2007 kello 23:20:
this has had the practical outcome that these communities have extended the scope of the Wikibooks project from what other Wikibooks projects are doing - in hosting lesson plans and pedagogic guidance for using these textbooks in class. (This latter seems to be more suited to Wikiversity in my mind at least - is this also the same for you, and/or is it a problem?)
I think the whole Wikiversity should give-up the "content production" and focus on hosting communities of learners who want to do things together. This way Wikiversity should have only good descriptions of "learning projects", which are communities interested in to help each other to learn something. David Wiley's syllabus of Introduction to Open Education class is a great example of this kind of use of a wiki, here:
http://www.opencontent.org/wiki/index.php? title=How_to_use_a_wiki_to_facilitate_learning
This way the Wikiversity pages should focus on to manage the "learning projects", whereas the "learning content" would be there where they naturally belong to: in the other Wikimedia project's sites, such as Wikibooks, Wikicommons, Wikipedia etc. These projects are already there to have "educational content" in them. In the Wikiversity learning project pages there would be then of course links to the content pages (Wikibooks etc.).
Put another way: what does Wikiversity do (or intend to do) that Wikibooks can never do, as presently defined?
Making a meaningful structure for "learning projects" and offering them for people so that it is very easy to participate in them is something Wikibooks probably will never do. I think Wikibooks mission is very clear: "to create a free collection of open-content textbooks".
The mission of the Wikiversity should then be: to create and run free learning projects.
So, the 'international' dimension here comes down to whether it is possible - or useful - to define how Wikiversity and Wikibooks would relate _in_all_languages. If it is possible and/or useful, then it might be timely to actively construct such a map of how the two projects relate (eg how much overlap is ok, what the scope of each is, and how they can share resources etc), and set out a framework for how different languages can be set up, defined and organised around various activities.
I think the Wikiversity should be one, but multi-lingual. In Wikiversity we should offer "learning projects" in many languages and not build many parallel Wikiversitys in different languages. The languages could simple be defined with categories. This would promote people to do some studies on Wikiversity also in some foreign language, which is very "educational". :-)
- Teemu
Wikiversity-l mailing list Wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l
Hi all,
I agree with Teemu. Definition of both missions give us the difference:
I think Wikibooks mission is very clear: "to create a free collection of open-content textbooks".
The mission of the Wikiversity should then be: to create and run free learning projects.
I also think that Wikiversity needs the opportunity to host peaces of Wikibook´s texts and Wikipedia´s articles and modify them. But just peaces. Full texts should be placed on those pages.
And something from international point of view. I am Czech, my native language is Czech. Actully Czech wikipedia is on the 22nd possition with its more than 80 000 articles. We are also having in our language other projects excepting Wikiversity and Wikinews. Other projects allready exists for a few years, but they are still in the phoetal phase. Number of speaker of Czech language is decreasing. It means, we are practicaly running just Wikipedia. I dont prefer English for communication, thats why I found a few month ago Czech Wikiversity on beta, but now I see, that I we would not be abble to go for new language version request on meta. There are just about 3-5 interested people in extendeing its content. There is noone interested in maintaining that system. We are having no resource on Wikibooks. So I would say, we are wasting a lot of energy and time there. And this would be simillar on other wikiversities. So for this time, it seems me familiar to centralize all of these people under one website and for the deep future, there might be a possibility to differ these languages for different domains.
And one more thing on the and. Ive been on WM Polska conference this year, having a presentation about Wikiversity. Most interest was there from the site of Wikibookians, but their opinion was pesimistic. I think wikibookians are a little bit affraid of loosing something. It is important to explaing that Wikiversity is completly different projects and not just Wikibookians will make Wikiversity´s community. See en.wikiversity, there are also people from Wikipedia (like me) and for the future I think, new people from outside will joint - with methodological skills.
Juan de Vojníkov (aka Juan)
2007/11/13, Teemu Leinonen teemu.leinonen@taik.fi:
Hi Cormac,
thank you for raising up this important topic in the list. I hope this does not end-up to be a re-run of argumentation you and me already have had.
Cormac Lawler kirjoitti 13.11.2007 kello 23:20:
this has had the practical outcome that these communities have extended the scope of the Wikibooks project from what other Wikibooks projects are doing - in hosting lesson plans and pedagogic guidance for using these textbooks in class. (This latter seems to be more suited to Wikiversity in my mind at least - is this also the same for you, and/or is it a problem?)
I think the whole Wikiversity should give-up the "content production" and focus on hosting communities of learners who want to do things together. This way Wikiversity should have only good descriptions of "learning projects", which are communities interested in to help each other to learn something. David Wiley's syllabus of Introduction to Open Education class is a great example of this kind of use of a wiki, here:
http://www.opencontent.org/wiki/index.php? title=How_to_use_a_wiki_to_facilitate_learning
This way the Wikiversity pages should focus on to manage the "learning projects", whereas the "learning content" would be there where they naturally belong to: in the other Wikimedia project's sites, such as Wikibooks, Wikicommons, Wikipedia etc. These projects are already there to have "educational content" in them. In the Wikiversity learning project pages there would be then of course links to the content pages (Wikibooks etc.).
Put another way: what does Wikiversity do (or intend to do) that Wikibooks can never do, as presently defined?
Making a meaningful structure for "learning projects" and offering them for people so that it is very easy to participate in them is something Wikibooks probably will never do. I think Wikibooks mission is very clear: "to create a free collection of open-content textbooks".
The mission of the Wikiversity should then be: to create and run free learning projects.
So, the 'international' dimension here comes down to whether it is possible - or useful - to define how Wikiversity and Wikibooks would relate _in_all_languages. If it is possible and/or useful, then it might be timely to actively construct such a map of how the two projects relate (eg how much overlap is ok, what the scope of each is, and how they can share resources etc), and set out a framework for how different languages can be set up, defined and organised around various activities.
I think the Wikiversity should be one, but multi-lingual. In Wikiversity we should offer "learning projects" in many languages and not build many parallel Wikiversitys in different languages. The languages could simple be defined with categories. This would promote people to do some studies on Wikiversity also in some foreign language, which is very "educational". :-)
- Teemu
Wikiversity-l mailing list Wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l
On Fri, Nov 16, 2007 at 01:07:54PM +0100, Juan de Vojn?kov wrote:
Hi all,
I agree with Teemu. Definition of both missions give us the difference:
I think Wikibooks mission is very clear: "to create a free collection of open-content
textbooks".
The mission of the Wikiversity should then be: to create and run
free
learning projects.
I also think that Wikiversity needs the opportunity to host peaces of Wikibook�s texts and Wikipedia�s articles and modify them. But just peaces. Full texts should be placed on those pages.
I agree in part with this. It is false to think that there is a clear distinction between learning projects and textbooks, at least if if you think of learning projects as learning communities. Textbooks are not the only learning resource. Learning projects should include learning materials which are preferably interactive. I think creating interactive materials is a job for wikiversity, not wikibooks, and it is a job we are not doing.
So I agree that wikibooks is for complete textbooks. Wikiversity should host communities of learners, along with course structures, course materials, interactive materials and bits from wikibooks and wikipedia.
I think the idea of wikiversity in many languages is not likely to work. The English language wikiversity is struggling.
Brian. [[Bduke]]
And something from international point of view. I am Czech, my native language is Czech. Actully Czech wikipedia is on the 22nd possition with its more than 80 000 articles. We are also having in our language other projects excepting Wikiversity and Wikinews. Other projects allready exists for a few years, but they are still in the phoetal phase. Number of speaker of Czech language is decreasing. It means, we are practicaly running just Wikipedia.
I dont prefer English for communication, thats why I found a few month ago Czech Wikiversity on beta, but now I see, that I we would not be abble to go for new language version request on meta. There are just about 3-5 interested people in extendeing its content. There is noone interested in maintaining that system. We are having no resource on Wikibooks. So I would say, we are wasting a lot of energy and time there. And this would be simillar on other wikiversities.
So for this time, it seems me familiar to centralize all of these people under one website and for the deep future, there might be a possibility to differ these languages for different domains.
And one more thing on the and. Ive been on WM Polska conference this year, having a presentation about Wikiversity. Most interest was there from the site of Wikibookians, but their opinion was pesimistic. I think wikibookians are a little bit affraid of loosing something. It is important to explaing that Wikiversity is completly different projects and not just Wikibookians will make Wikiversity�s community. See en.wikiversity, there are also people from Wikipedia (like me) and for the future I think, new people from outside will joint - with methodological skills.
Juan de Vojn�kov (aka Juan)
2007/11/13, Teemu Leinonen <[1]teemu.leinonen@taik.fi>:
Hi Cormac, thank you for raising up this important topic in the list. I hope this does not end-up to be a re-run of argumentation you and me already have had. Cormac Lawler kirjoitti 13.11.2007 kello 23:20: > this has had the > practical outcome that these communities have extended the scope of > the Wikibooks project from what other Wikibooks projects are doing - > in hosting lesson plans and pedagogic guidance for using these > textbooks in class. (This latter seems to be more suited to > Wikiversity in my mind at least - is this also the same for you, > and/or is it a problem?) I think the whole Wikiversity should give-up the "content production" and focus on hosting communities of learners who want to do things together. This way Wikiversity should have only good descriptions of "learning projects", which are communities interested in to help each other to learn something. David Wiley's syllabus of Introduction to Open Education class is a great example of this kind of use of a wiki, here: [2]http://www.opencontent.org/wiki/index.php? title=How_to_use_a_wiki_to_facilitate_learning This way the Wikiversity pages should focus on to manage the "learning projects", whereas the "learning content" would be there where they naturally belong to: in the other Wikimedia project's sites, such as Wikibooks, Wikicommons, Wikipedia etc. These projects are already there to have "educational content" in them. In the Wikiversity learning project pages there would be then of course links to the content pages (Wikibooks etc.). > Put another way: what does Wikiversity do (or intend to > do) that Wikibooks can never do, as presently defined? Making a meaningful structure for "learning projects" and offering them for people so that it is very easy to participate in them is something Wikibooks probably will never do. I think Wikibooks mission is very clear: "to create a free collection of open-content textbooks". The mission of the Wikiversity should then be: to create and run free learning projects. > So, the 'international' dimension here comes down to whether it is > possible - or useful - to define how Wikiversity and Wikibooks would > relate _in_all_languages. If it is possible and/or useful, then it > might be timely to actively construct such a map of how the two > projects relate (eg how much overlap is ok, what the scope of each is, > and how they can share resources etc), and set out a framework for how > different languages can be set up, defined and organised around > various activities. I think the Wikiversity should be one, but multi-lingual. In Wikiversity we should offer "learning projects" in many languages and not build many parallel Wikiversitys in different languages. The languages could simple be defined with categories. This would promote people to do some studies on Wikiversity also in some foreign language, which is very "educational". :-) - Teemu _______________________________________________ Wikiversity-l mailing list [3]Wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org [4]http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-lReferences
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