I just came across this list and wanted to pose a question to all list members as I am new to wikiversity. Are free online degrees through wikiversity in the works? And if not, why not? What is keeping them from being able to offer completely free online degrees?
I shudder anytime I see the words "online" and "degrees" together. But that's just me.
Said Kassem Hamideh
On 4/30/07, Michael Wehrle mwehrle@gmail.com wrote:
I just came across this list and wanted to pose a question to all list members as I am new to wikiversity. Are free online degrees through wikiversity in the works? And if not, why not? What is keeping them from being able to offer completely free online degrees?
-- Best,
Michael W. mwehrle@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikiversity-l mailing list Wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l
On 4/30/07, Michael Wehrle mwehrle@gmail.com wrote:
I just came across this list and wanted to pose a question to all list members as I am new to wikiversity. Are free online degrees through wikiversity in the works? And if not, why not? What is keeping them from being able to offer completely free online degrees?
It's not really been too heavily discussed; however, at present time Wikiversity is simply way, way, way too immature for us to even consider becoming a degree-granting institution. Perhaps some day in the future, but by no means at this time.
On 4/30/07, Daniel Cannon cannon.danielc@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/30/07, Michael Wehrle mwehrle@gmail.com wrote:
I just came across this list and wanted to pose a question to all list
members as I am new to wikiversity. Are free online degrees through wikiversity in the works? And if not, why not? What is keeping them from being able to offer completely free online degrees?
It's not really been too heavily discussed; however, at present time Wikiversity is simply way, way, way too immature for us to even consider becoming a degree-granting institution. Perhaps some day in the future, but by no means at this time.
-- Daniel Cannon (AmiDaniel)
http://amidaniel.com cannon.danielc@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikiversity-l mailing list Wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l
wikiversity won't give degrees.
that was explicitly stated since its conception
so no, not now, not on the future
Pedro Sanchez wrote:
On 4/30/07, Daniel Cannon cannon.danielc@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/30/07, Michael Wehrle mwehrle@gmail.com wrote:
I just came across this list and wanted to pose a question to all list
members as I am new to wikiversity. Are free online degrees through wikiversity in the works? And if not, why not? What is keeping them from being able to offer completely free online degrees?
It's not really been too heavily discussed; however, at present time Wikiversity is simply way, way, way too immature for us to even consider becoming a degree-granting institution. Perhaps some day in the future, but by no means at this time.
-- Daniel Cannon (AmiDaniel)
wikiversity won't give degrees.
that was explicitly stated since its conception
so no, not now, not on the future
I don't believe that was ever stated, although there were many opposed to the Wikiversity concept in the beginning because this could be seen as a diploma mill as opposed to a legitimate learning center.
And this is something that must be fought against even if some sort of arrangement to offer high school or college credits (or even "CEU" credits) is ever developed that would be recognized through some sort of legitimate accrediation body. The standards needed to offer legitimate degrees are high enough that we shouldn't be deceiving anybody while Wikiversity is starting out that such degrees are going to be granted any time soon, if ever.
I did come across a legitimate educational institution a while back that wanted to co-sponsor an on-line learning experience through Wikiversity, where this other organization would be offering the actual educational credits and accreditation. I don't know how much follow-through happened on the idea, but it is something that has happened (they came to us, not the other way around BTW) and may happen in the future in other situations.
I would also have to say for myself that I would feel very uncomfortable before even educational credits of some sort are offered (even in a joint setting) without some sort of formal discussion happening about it not only on the Collequium, but also with the WMF board getting involved as well to formalize the arrangement. And for the standards to be very clear about what would be needed by both the participants as well as those who are setting up the instruction.
There is quite a bit we can do before we need to reach these much higher standards for much more informal learning experiences, such as is already happening on Wikiversity. Even if a (very) long term goal is to eventually reach the ability to offer a degree program. I would expect that it will take some time, meaning many years of effort, before we are going to even offer academic credits of any kind.
-- Robert Horning
Hi Robert,
On 5/1/07, Robert Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
Pedro Sanchez wrote:
On 4/30/07, Daniel Cannon cannon.danielc@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/30/07, Michael Wehrle mwehrle@gmail.com wrote:
I just came across this list and wanted to pose a question to all list
members as I am new to wikiversity. Are free online degrees through wikiversity in the works? And if not, why not? What is keeping them from being able to offer completely free online degrees?
It's not really been too heavily discussed; however, at present time Wikiversity is simply way, way, way too immature for us to even consider becoming a degree-granting institution. Perhaps some day in the future, but by no means at this time.
-- Daniel Cannon (AmiDaniel)
wikiversity won't give degrees.
that was explicitly stated since its conception
so no, not now, not on the future
I don't believe that was ever stated, although there were many opposed to the Wikiversity concept in the beginning because this could be seen as a diploma mill as opposed to a legitimate learning center.
I suppose Pedro was referring to the proposal which states "Wikiversity is not: a degree or title granting institution" http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Wikiversity_project_proposal
And this is something that must be fought against even if some sort of arrangement to offer high school or college credits (or even "CEU" credits) is ever developed that would be recognized through some sort of legitimate accrediation body. The standards needed to offer legitimate degrees are high enough that we shouldn't be deceiving anybody while Wikiversity is starting out that such degrees are going to be granted any time soon, if ever.
I did come across a legitimate educational institution a while back that wanted to co-sponsor an on-line learning experience through Wikiversity, where this other organization would be offering the actual educational credits and accreditation. I don't know how much follow-through happened on the idea, but it is something that has happened (they came to us, not the other way around BTW) and may happen in the future in other situations.
What institution was this? Where was it proposed/discussed?
I would also have to say for myself that I would feel very uncomfortable before even educational credits of some sort are offered (even in a joint setting) without some sort of formal discussion happening about it not only on the Collequium, but also with the WMF board getting involved as well to formalize the arrangement. And for the standards to be very clear about what would be needed by both the participants as well as those who are setting up the instruction.
Totally - what you set out here would be absolute minimum requirements for such a venture.
There is quite a bit we can do before we need to reach these much higher standards for much more informal learning experiences, such as is already happening on Wikiversity. Even if a (very) long term goal is to eventually reach the ability to offer a degree program. I would expect that it will take some time, meaning many years of effort, before we are going to even offer academic credits of any kind.
-- Robert Horning
Yeah - keep the focus on the *learning*...
Cormac
Cormac Lawler wrote:
Hi Robert,
On 5/1/07, Robert Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
I did come across a legitimate educational institution a while back that wanted to co-sponsor an on-line learning experience through Wikiversity, where this other organization would be offering the actual educational credits and accreditation. I don't know how much follow-through happened on the idea, but it is something that has happened (they came to us, not the other way around BTW) and may happen in the future in other situations.
What institution was this? Where was it proposed/discussed?
Cormac
The institution in this case was the Rochester, New Hampshire (USA) Public School District where they wanted to use Wikiversity as a means to help members of their community to eventually work to earn a high school diploma. Details about this can be found at this URL:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Study_help_desk/Archive_%28July_2006-...
Yes, that is Wikibooks, not Wikiversity, although I did bring this issue up at the Colloquium in this reference to the Wikibooks request:
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/January_2007#...
It should be of note that it was the assistant superintendent who made the initial offer, and I would presume that he would also be in a position to be able to get actual high school credits accepted... at least for the state of New Hampshire. As I mentioned on the Colloquium, high school credits would be quite a bit easier to justify, as would granting a high school diploma.
I have no idea if this was followed up with any sort of contact to this superintendent, and I know that nothing was ever really done along these lines. I was a bit busy at the time, but I felt that the larger Wikiversity community was made aware of the offer. It would be unfortunate if this offer made in good faith was rejected simply out of neglect.
-- Robert Horning
I appreciate all the various posts and attendant points of view heretofore set forth in this list. Since I am the one who started the thread, allow me to express and clarify where I am coming from.
No one would doubt the power of the Internet to disseminate information, lots of it to lots of places around the world. I'm confident that I don't have to convince anyone on this list of the intrinsic power of the Internet, or if you prefer, the world-wide-web. Seeing as we have this great medium through which information can be transmitted, shouldn't we harness this great power to the betterment of the world at large? especially the 3rd world, or those who would otherwise never have access to higher education?
Can the requirements of accreditation be met, while making it freely (monetarily speaking) available to all who are motivated and willing to meet the requirements? Is it fair to put a price-tag on degrees when society stands to benefit from individuals securing them? Wouldn't the advantages of "free" degrees far outweigh the disadvantages of offering free degrees? Wouldn't the net result be a worldwide increase in productivity and entrepreneurship, etc.? Wouldn't it help alleviate poverty in the 3rd world and elsewhere?
Since the world by and large doesn't seem to recognize learning for learning sake, but only that learning that is done within the confines of "degree seeking," isn't anything that would result in the obtaining of more degrees by more of the worlds people be a good thing?
I guess I am just an advocate of leveling the playing field. In my Utopian world there would be true equal-opportunity. And part and partial of that would be free education for all, including higher education. Please tell me am I lost in my own little Utopian dream world? Or do could my wishes have a basis in reality as a result of this new technology we call the web?
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.
I envisaged in my trial, a potential scenario where a person could engage with a range of content that we helped manage. In our management of the content, we would try to make sure that content and activities aligned as much as possible with our assessment criteria. Our assessment criteria would be made explicit along with any other formal education participant's listing their assessment criteria. A potential student could access and engage in learning content and activities, including forums and discussion with facilitators, they could do all the course up until assessment. At this point, if the student wanted to gain a credential or formal recognition for their learning, they would negotiate a fee with a participating institution.
That fee might be paid in kind, by mentoring or facilitating another learner, or through a recognition of prior learning process - which asks a much reduced fee...
That's it. From an institutional perspective, where our existence unfortunately relies to a large part on fee paying income, was the closest I could think of getting us to a free and open education system. For a pictorial depiction of this idea - see the pay it forward learning slide show http://flickr.com/photos/leighblackall/sets/1634027/.
But I don't think my institution - or the wikiversity platform are in the mood for such thinking.
On 5/2/07, Michael Wehrle mwehrle@gmail.com wrote:
I appreciate all the various posts and attendant points of view heretofore set forth in this list. Since I am the one who started the thread, allow me to express and clarify where I am coming from.
No one would doubt the power of the Internet to disseminate information, lots of it to lots of places around the world. I'm confident that I don't have to convince anyone on this list of the intrinsic power of the Internet, or if you prefer, the world-wide-web. Seeing as we have this great medium through which information can be transmitted, shouldn't we harness this great power to the betterment of the world at large? especially the 3rd world, or those who would otherwise never have access to higher education?
Can the requirements of accreditation be met, while making it freely (monetarily speaking) available to all who are motivated and willing to meet the requirements? Is it fair to put a price-tag on degrees when society stands to benefit from individuals securing them? Wouldn't the advantages of "free" degrees far outweigh the disadvantages of offering free degrees? Wouldn't the net result be a worldwide increase in productivity and entrepreneurship, etc.? Wouldn't it help alleviate poverty in the 3rd world and elsewhere?
Since the world by and large doesn't seem to recognize learning for learning sake, but only that learning that is done within the confines of "degree seeking," isn't anything that would result in the obtaining of more degrees by more of the worlds people be a good thing?
I guess I am just an advocate of leveling the playing field. In my Utopian world there would be true equal-opportunity. And part and partial of that would be free education for all, including higher education. Please tell me am I lost in my own little Utopian dream world? Or do could my wishes have a basis in reality as a result of this new technology we call the web?
-- Best,
Michael W. mwehrle@gmail.com
Wikiversity-l mailing list Wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l
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.
<snip>
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
On 5/1/07, Michael Wehrle mwehrle@gmail.com wrote:
I just came across this list and wanted to pose a question to all list members as I am new to wikiversity. Are free online degrees through wikiversity in the works? And if not, why not? What is keeping them from being able to offer completely free online degrees?
Hi Michael, and welcome to Wikiversity. :-)
As others have said, Wikiversity won't be giving out degrees in the foreseeable future, if at all. However, some people in the community have been advocating it does move in that direction - see the following page, and links from it: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Creation_of_Free_Online_University. For reference, you can always consult the original proposal: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Wikiversity_project_proposal - but there are still many aspects of Wikiversity that need significant discussion.
My own personal take on free online degrees is that it is completely unrealistic to be expecting to do this self-sufficiently - however, creating partnerships with accredited institutions that would grant degrees (or some sort of credit) for work done in Wikiversity could be a realistic option.
Cheers,
Cormac (User:Cormaggio)
On 5/1/07, Cormac Lawler cormaggio@gmail.com wrote:
My own personal take on free online degrees is that it is completely unrealistic to be expecting to do this self-sufficiently - however, creating partnerships with accredited institutions that would grant degrees (or some sort of credit) for work done in Wikiversity could be a realistic option.
I agree. Personally, I think it hurts the project more than it helps it to toy with ideas of granting degrees, as it's probably not going to happen. There are plenty of places online who will give you degrees that are essentially worthless; I'd rather Wikiversity not join them. We're a place of independent, leisure study, and I'd prefer we preserve this easy-going, liberal take to education, rather than replace it with the highly-structured, goal-oriented, and restrictive curriculum that would be needed for us to become a degree-granting institution. Plus, I find that degrees tend to get in the way of education :).
Michael Wehrle wrote:
I just came across this list and wanted to pose a question to all list members as I am new to wikiversity. Are free online degrees through wikiversity in the works? And if not, why not? What is keeping them from being able to offer completely free online degrees?
Better to avoid crass credentialism.
Ec
Michael Wehrle wrote:
I just came across this list and wanted to pose a question to all list members as I am new to wikiversity. Are free online degrees through wikiversity in the works? And if not, why not? What is keeping them from being able to offer completely free online degrees?
In my opinion, Wikiversity should never award degrees.
The reason for this is based on the fact that a degree has its value in being accepted by people outside of the degree giving institution. This would mean that the basis of the degree needs to be under some sort of control (or at least must be certified) by people outside of Wikiversity. From this I conclude that the curriculum and learning resources would *no longer be free*. (Free as in "liberty," not as in "beer"). In my mind this means we have choice: Either we must become a type of Citizendium-versity, with "authorities" blessings the content and then "we" can award degrees, or we should never try to put up "giving out degrees" as a goal, in the first place. I definitely prefer the latter option.
Just my 2c. Andreas =:-)
My understanding was that wikiversity would not itself "grant" degrees. Rather the degree "granting" would be thru a proxy, and the coursework via another proxy.
For example, a technical/science degree program via wikiversity could have something like the online branch of Thomas Edison State College of New Jersey be the proxy to grant a degree, and the coursework provider could be MIT. Thus, wikiversity itself neither provides coursework nor degrees, rather, via proxys such as in this example, it could, hypothetically, "facillitate", rather than "grant" degrees.
Does this sound more or less correct in terms of the general approach to degrees with wikiversity?
Frank Erdman --- Andreas awolf002@earthlink.net wrote:
Michael Wehrle wrote:
I just came across this list and wanted to pose a
question to all list
members as I am new to wikiversity. Are free
online degrees through
wikiversity in the works? And if not, why not?
What is keeping them
from being able to offer completely free online
degrees?
In my opinion, Wikiversity should never award degrees.
The reason for this is based on the fact that a degree has its value in being accepted by people outside of the degree giving institution. This would mean that the basis of the degree needs to be under some sort of control (or at least must be certified) by people outside of Wikiversity. From this I conclude that the curriculum and learning resources would *no longer be free*. (Free as in "liberty," not as in "beer"). In my mind this means we have choice: Either we must become a type of Citizendium-versity, with "authorities" blessings the content and then "we" can award degrees, or we should never try to put up "giving out degrees" as a goal, in the first place. I definitely prefer the latter option.
Just my 2c. Andreas =:-)
Wikiversity-l mailing list Wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
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On 5/1/07, Frank Erdman frankerdman2000@yahoo.com wrote:
My understanding was that wikiversity would not itself "grant" degrees. Rather the degree "granting" would be thru a proxy, and the coursework via another proxy.
For example, a technical/science degree program via wikiversity could have something like the online branch of Thomas Edison State College of New Jersey be the proxy to grant a degree, and the coursework provider could be MIT. Thus, wikiversity itself neither provides coursework nor degrees, rather, via proxys such as in this example, it could, hypothetically, "facillitate", rather than "grant" degrees.
Does this sound more or less correct in terms of the general approach to degrees with wikiversity?
Frank Erdman
I think that's perfectly sound - bearing in mind that it's still only a *potential* rather than any kind of concrete proposal. Wikiversity is also trying to develop the coursework, though, as you say, it could (and I believe should) be integrating with other open educational resources/platforms to best facilitate whatever type of program the particular learner/teacher wants.
Cormac
Hi Michael and all,
I pretty much agree with all the others in the list, but would still like to open up a bit the concept of "degree", and think how Wikiversity could respond it its own way? I have wrote about this in one blog post over here:
http://flosse.dicole.org/?item=wikiversity-academy-popular-education- and-free-school
<- Reading instructions: in academy, popular education and free schools there are "recognitions" which the community awards for its community members. No degrees, nor certifications, nor accreditation.
So, then back to the concept of "degree". Here are some questions:
Why are there degrees?
1) To guarantee for the employers that the degree holders can do a certain job 2) To guarantee for the educational institutions goods with a value in the markets
In addition to these there are jobs for what you need a license to practice (in most parts of the world): medical doctors and other medical professionals, lawyers, teachers teaching children, policemen, military etc. I assume that it is not realistic to aim to give "degree programs" on these topics in the Wikiversity, *but there are many other topics we may include to the Wikiversity offering and even give recognitions to each other when someone has made a good job in some course*.
Summary: I would like to see some kind of "recognition" system / practice in the Wikiversity. It could be a simple list of Wikiversity course each user has took with links to the course pages and course work. This way people could use their "Wikiversity portfolio / CV" also when they are looking for a job. The employer / person hiring may then decide what value she gives for the "Wikiversity courses".
As a person also hiring people once in a while, I would actually right now value pretty high "Wikiversity courses" in someone's CV. For me they (at the moment) tell that the person is into new things, active, capable and willing to learn new things etc.
Best regards,
- Teemu
Michael Wehrle kirjoitti 1.5.2007 kello 5:40:
I just came across this list and wanted to pose a question to all list members as I am new to wikiversity. Are free online degrees through wikiversity in the works? And if not, why not? What is keeping them from being able to offer completely free online degrees?
----------------------------------------------- Teemu Leinonen http://www.uiah.fi/~tleinone/ +358 50 351 6796 Media Lab http://mlab.uiah.fi University of Art and Design Helsinki -----------------------------------------------
On 5/2/07, Teemu Leinonen teemu.leinonen@uiah.fi wrote:
Summary: I would like to see some kind of "recognition" system / practice in the Wikiversity. It could be a simple list of Wikiversity course each user has took with links to the course pages and course work. This way people could use their "Wikiversity portfolio / CV" also when they are looking for a job. The employer / person hiring may then decide what value she gives for the "Wikiversity courses".
I really like the notion of "recognition" as something that is more basic than a degree. I think that if the Wikiversity activities that people take part in are recognised, not just within the community, but *outside* it (ie in the working world) then we will have achieved something really radical. It is education for all, and opportunities for all. Funnily enough, even though this is a utopian vision, I still this this is more practical than the idea of giving out free degrees. :-)
Cormac
Hi Cormac et. all.
Cormac Lawler kirjoitti 2.5.2007 kello 12:35:
I really like the notion of "recognition" as something that is more basic than a degree. I think that if the Wikiversity activities that people take part in are recognised, not just within the community, but *outside* it (ie in the working world) then we will have achieved something really radical. It is education for all, and opportunities for all. Funnily enough, even though this is a utopian vision, I still this this is more practical than the idea of giving out free degrees. :-)
I agree. But I am also sure that there are many clever people in the "working world" who will see the value of Wikiversity studies.
Also we shouldn't forget the basic skills and knowledge that are very valuable for majority of people in the world just as a such. Examples: Learning to fish or farm will brings food in your table, learning to build a shelter will give you a place to live at, learning to communicate will help you to find a partner :-) (http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs)
How many of the people on this list know how to fish with simple equipment available for less than 50 € cents all around the world?
- Teemu
----------------------------------------------- Teemu Leinonen http://www.uiah.fi/~tleinone/ +358 50 351 6796 Media Lab http://mlab.uiah.fi University of Art and Design Helsinki -----------------------------------------------
On 5/2/07, Teemu Leinonen teemu.leinonen@uiah.fi wrote:
How many of the people on this list know how to fish with simple equipment available for less than 50 € cents all around the world?
<poke>
/me bets Teemu does.
</poke> ;-)
Cormac
Long stick, string, hook assembled together... that kind of thing?
On 5/2/07, Cormac Lawler cormaggio@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/2/07, Teemu Leinonen teemu.leinonen@uiah.fi wrote:
How many of the people on this list know how to fish with simple equipment available for less than 50 € cents all around the world?
<poke>
/me bets Teemu does.
</poke> ;-)
Cormac
Wikiversity-l mailing list Wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l
Teemu Leinonen wrote:
Also we shouldn't forget the basic skills and knowledge that are very valuable for majority of people in the world just as a such. Examples: Learning to fish or farm will brings food in your table, learning to build a shelter will give you a place to live at
How many people who need these skills to survive have a computer in their shelter with which to access Wikiversity?
Ec
Ray Saintonge kirjoitti 2.5.2007 kello 20:29:
Teemu Leinonen wrote:
Also we shouldn't forget the basic skills and knowledge that are very valuable for majority of people in the world just as a such. Examples: Learning to fish or farm will brings food in your table, learning to build a shelter will give you a place to live at
How many people who need these skills to survive have a computer in their shelter with which to access Wikiversity?
Exactly because of this we should think alternative ways to offer the Wikiversity courses for people with limited access to computers and Internet connection. Also if I would have more skills e.g. related to fishing, farming and shelter building I could much better help people who really need these skills to survive.
- Teemu
----------------------------------------------- Teemu Leinonen http://www.uiah.fi/~tleinone/ +358 50 351 6796 Media Lab http://mlab.uiah.fi University of Art and Design Helsinki -----------------------------------------------
Teemu Leinonen wrote:
I pretty much agree with all the others in the list, but would still like to open up a bit the concept of "degree", and think how Wikiversity could respond it its own way? <- Reading instructions: in academy, popular education and free schools there are "recognitions" which the community awards for its community members. No degrees, nor certifications, nor accreditation.
When looking at the concept of the Wikiversity one needs to begin by looking at education as a goal in its own right. You learn something because learning is a value in its own right. There is a personal sense of fulfillment to having progressed in a field of knowledge, rather than in the illusory belief that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
So, then back to the concept of "degree". Here are some questions:
Why are there degrees?
- To guarantee for the employers that the degree holders can do a
certain job 2) To guarantee for the educational institutions goods with a value in the markets
Why should Wikiversity be a servant of the employers? If the employers want to maximize the value of their enterprise. By providing such guarantees for employers Wikiversity would adopt the values of the employers, and become caught up in their partucular yuppie rat-race.
Your second point subsumes that Wikiversity is a player in the market place, and that it is somehow in competition with similar institutions. The essence of free knowledge is its ability to be shared by all. If someone else can educate another person in his chosen field better than we can we should not need to engage in a tug-of-war about who can teach the learner better.
In addition to these there are jobs for what you need a license to practice (in most parts of the world): medical doctors and other medical professionals, lawyers, teachers teaching children, policemen, military etc. I assume that it is not realistic to aim to give "degree programs" on these topics in the Wikiversity, *but there are many other topics we may include to the Wikiversity offering and even give recognitions to each other when someone has made a good job in some course*.
If the "teacher" of a subject wants to give his students a gold star upon completion of a course why would Wikiversity need to prevent that. If a student wants to use what he has learned through Wikiversity as information for challenging the examinations of an accrediting body he should be entirely free to do so. What he learns is more important than who he learns it from. Much of what passes as professional accreditation has more to do with "paying one's dues", and conforming to the values of the professional body without regard to whether by doing so one provides any benefits to society. To be sure there are exceptional individuals who do great work despite being professionals, but many depend on a wall of mythic bricks held together by the mortar of arrogance to separate them from society.
Summary: I would like to see some kind of "recognition" system / practice in the Wikiversity. It could be a simple list of Wikiversity course each user has took with links to the course pages and course work. This way people could use their "Wikiversity portfolio / CV" also when they are looking for a job. The employer / person hiring may then decide what value she gives for the "Wikiversity courses".
Even if it were to concede that as a good thing, who would accept the responsibility of all the administrivia that it involves? I doubt that it would be an enlightening use of volunteer time. If we pay someone to do this the entire character of the project would change.
As a person also hiring people once in a while, I would actually right now value pretty high "Wikiversity courses" in someone's CV. For me they (at the moment) tell that the person is into new things, active, capable and willing to learn new things etc.
For some employers beiing into new things would suggest someone who is chronically unable to focus on the task at hand, and thus not a productive employee. There are jobs where innovation is an asset, but they are a minority.
Ec
Ray et all,
Ray Saintonge kirjoitti 2.5.2007 kello 20:17:
Why should Wikiversity be a servant of the employers? If the employers want to maximize the value of their enterprise. By providing such guarantees for employers Wikiversity would adopt the values of the employers, and become caught up in their partucular yuppie rat-race.
Exactly. This is why I pointed out what are the degrees really for and about. With this I was trying to make it clear that they are not very much according to the idea of "Free Learning Community", academy, popular education or free school.
Still, I do not mind if taking studies on Wikiversity will make some people more competence in a labor market.
Your second point subsumes that Wikiversity is a player in the market place, and that it is somehow in competition with similar institutions.
Well, I didn't take any stand when opening the concept of a degree. I fully agree with your conclusions.
Even if it were to concede that as a good thing, who would accept the responsibility of all the administrivia that it involves? I doubt that it would be an enlightening use of volunteer time. If we pay someone to do this the entire character of the project would change.
I do not see here any extra administrative work involved. You simply write the courses you have took in the Wikiversity in your user page with links to the course pages. You just build your own "Wikiversity study record" on your own user page. All based on trust and transparency. Shit will happen but I am pretty sure that the benefits of openness are greater than if having some "reliable record keeping body" working on this.
For some employers beiing into new things would suggest someone who is chronically unable to focus on the task at hand, and thus not a productive employee. There are jobs where innovation is an asset, but they are a minority.
You are right again. Depending on the job you are applying for, you may or may not add your Wikipedia courses in your CV. if you are looking for a job from my research group, please do. :-)
- Teemu
----------------------------------------------- Teemu Leinonen http://www.uiah.fi/~tleinone/ +358 50 351 6796 Media Lab http://mlab.uiah.fi University of Art and Design Helsinki -----------------------------------------------
Teemu Leinonen wrote:
Ray Saintonge kirjoitti 2.5.2007 kello 20:17:
Even if it were to concede that as a good thing, who would accept the responsibility of all the administrivia that it involves? I doubt that it would be an enlightening use of volunteer time. If we pay someone to do this the entire character of the project would change.
I do not see here any extra administrative work involved. You simply write the courses you have took in the Wikiversity in your user page with links to the course pages. You just build your own "Wikiversity study record" on your own user page. All based on trust and transparency. Shit will happen but I am pretty sure that the benefits of openness are greater than if having some "reliable record keeping body" working on this.
I'm glad to see that we don't disagree on more than this. I think we are a long way from the trust and transparency that you envision. While having a detailed and transparent record on the Wikiversity site fits in with how wiki things are generally done, personnel departments are not likely to want to go through the work of examining detailed course work. It's so much easier to have all one's questions answered by glancing at a single page transcriot of school marks. If it also has the school's fancy official seal embossed on that paper, why would they want to look further. Bureaucrats bust trust other bureaucrats.
Ec
Teemu Leinonen wrote:
Ray et all,
Ray Saintonge kirjoitti 2.5.2007 kello 20:17:
Why should Wikiversity be a servant of the employers? If the employers want to maximize the value of their enterprise. By providing such guarantees for employers Wikiversity would adopt the values of the employers, and become caught up in their partucular yuppie rat-race.
Exactly. This is why I pointed out what are the degrees really for and about. With this I was trying to make it clear that they are not very much according to the idea of "Free Learning Community", academy, popular education or free school.
Still, I do not mind if taking studies on Wikiversity will make some people more competence in a labor market.
I would have to disagree with both points above, to a certain extent. The point of trying to appeal to the interests of "employers" is to provide an economically viable system for sustaining an effort like Wikiversity without having to resort to advertising or constantly having donation pledge drives. While it is nice to live in a utopian society where we can do things just because there is some positive social value to accomplish a given task, there are hard economic realities to operating a site like Wikiversity that can't be ignored. Things like network bandwidth, server equipment, and professional staff (aka via the WMF for all this) don't come cheap, even if we are sharing these costs with other WMF sister projects.
There have been several WMF projects in the past which have used direct grants from various organizations (with for-profit companies as a possibility) to help pay for various sub-projects. In educational environments, it isn't unknown to even make a legitimate business case to a for-profit corporation to provide educational experiences of some sort within an educational institution. I think it would be reasonable to discuss under what sort of circumstances such a corporate sponsorship would be considered reasonable and what would otherwise be considered "selling out".
Note that I'm not trying to suggest we should bend over backwards and structure all Wikiversity projects around a corporate model, but we shouldn't be dismissing these kind of opportunities out of hand either. It has always been a struggle to find some sort of self-sustaining economic model for content developers of free/open source content and software. And frankly most people involved with the free content movement (free as in freedom as well as beer) do a very lousy job of thinking through the economics of the situation. Regardless of even if there is nearly 100% voluntary contributions in terms of the actual content that is developed, you still have economic costs that must somehow be dealt with that are usually ignored completely.
I will note here that one of the reasons I thought Wikiversity would be a good fit with the WMF sister projects is that Wikiversity would have a chance to develop until a mature economic model could develop, as I've seen most other on-line "free" educational groups reach a point very quickly where they had to find some way to pay for the physical network requirements to operate such an environment. And usually those organizers didn't realize the actual demands until well after bandwidth capabilities were being exceeded or the 5 year old surplus computer they were using for hosting the project simply couldn't sustain the requirements of the project. Often these kind of on-line educational communities were a "hobby" that somebody had some surplus bandwidth, so they decided to donate some surplus stuff they had to see if the idea might be something useful, but only to realize the project growth quickly dominated the other more "legitimate" reasons for having the network bandwidth in the first place.
Jimbo Wales even suffered from this problem, where he did precisely the same thing in regards to Wikipedia. He had his own for-profit company (Bomis) that had some surplus bandwidth to sustain Wikipedia and Nupedia, only to discover that Wikipedia became so popular that it blew away his commercial bandwidth needs. At least in this situation the WMF has already gone through this difficult transition period successfully, and there are attempts to try and compensate for the economic issues involved.
Even if it were to concede that as a good thing, who would accept the responsibility of all the administrivia that it involves? I doubt that it would be an enlightening use of volunteer time. If we pay someone to do this the entire character of the project would change.
I do not see here any extra administrative work involved. You simply write the courses you have took in the Wikiversity in your user page with links to the course pages. You just build your own "Wikiversity study record" on your own user page. All based on trust and transparency. Shit will happen but I am pretty sure that the benefits of openness are greater than if having some "reliable record keeping body" working on this.
This boils down to certification of credentials, under various meanings of that term. The point of having a "registrar" or something similar to that would be a way to have any such claims on user pages to be verified to confirm if they in fact actually happened. It is one thing to claim to have written a particular Wikibook or Wikipedia article (which can also be independently verified), but to have claimed to have completed a given course of study implies that you have met some sort of criteria and that you have somehow "proven" that you have obtained the knowledge about that particular subject.
As can be seen with the Essjay incident on Wikipedia, an altruistic attitude on this is not going to be sufficient here. Some legitimate standards need to be established that go well beyond "yeah, I read through the material on this topic, and played around with the tests". How those standards are established is something of another thread and discussion, but there is a real need for hard standards that can be universally applied before somebody can claim to have completed a Wikiversity curriculum study experience. Claims to have completed something like this will have no value at all until you can demonstrate this knowledge and have that somehow certified.
Mind you, this is the reason why a degree is valued. It is a document that demonstrates somebody has obtained a certain amount of knowledge, and the educational institution who grants the degree is certifying that the person who holds the degree has in fact been examined to possess the knowledge represented by the degree. While there may be sometimes professional certification exams as well (like a professional engineer exam or a bar exam), quite often the degree is considered as valuable if not more so than the professional exam itself. Particularly when the degree is from a prestigious institution who has made efforts to keep their standards high.
While we may not call them "degrees" as such, I don't see why Wikiversity can't establish some sort of academic standard for students who wish to have their knowledge about a topic certified to some extent. It doesn't have to (at the moment) be a full baccalaureate program, but some sort of independently verifiable knowledge mastery and demonstration should be done other than somebody's personal claims on their user page.
For some employers beiing into new things would suggest someone who is chronically unable to focus on the task at hand, and thus not a productive employee. There are jobs where innovation is an asset, but they are a minority.
You are right again. Depending on the job you are applying for, you may or may not add your Wikipedia courses in your CV. if you are looking for a job from my research group, please do. :-)
- Teemu
I also hope that eventually Wikiversity learning experiences will also be considered valuable enough that they will be mentioned on CV/resumes. I would certainly look favorably at hiring individuals who have participated in a significant fashion with Wikimedia projects, if only as a demonstration for how well they can get along with people from different cultures and philosophical backgrounds.
-- Robert Horning
I appreciate this rounding off Robert.
Over at Wikieducator - at their recent Tectonic Shift Think Tankhttp://www.wikieducator.org/Tectonic_shift_think_tank, there was talk about negotiating with multiple nations to see if they can get training unit standards, curriculum documents, syllabus statements and other standardised education structures to knowledge onto the platform. It is already happening at the user level on both the Wikiversity and the Wikieducator platforms with some teachershttp://liveandletlearn.net/my-vision-for-learners-in-the-21st-century/uploading their particular syllabus, building references and learning activities around it, and asking for internationals to comparehttp://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Web_Design#Qualificationstheir national syllabus to it and build it further. The potential is that we might see a networked teaching (and learning) relationship form in some cases, where formal (and informal) teachers and students have an opportunity for cross curricular exchange, even international recognition of their course, and maybe even more streamlined migration opportunities. In other words, a person who gains a web design diploma in Kenya, may also be recognised in Australia by virtue of the relationship the teachers/institutions have on the wiki platform, and so gaining work visas and the like may become easier... etc
On 5/3/07, Robert Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
Teemu Leinonen wrote:
Ray et all,
Ray Saintonge kirjoitti 2.5.2007 kello 20:17:
Why should Wikiversity be a servant of the employers? If the employers want to maximize the value of their enterprise. By providing such guarantees for employers Wikiversity would adopt the values of the employers, and become caught up in their partucular yuppie rat-race.
Exactly. This is why I pointed out what are the degrees really for and about. With this I was trying to make it clear that they are not very much according to the idea of "Free Learning Community", academy, popular education or free school.
Still, I do not mind if taking studies on Wikiversity will make some people more competence in a labor market.
I would have to disagree with both points above, to a certain extent. The point of trying to appeal to the interests of "employers" is to provide an economically viable system for sustaining an effort like Wikiversity without having to resort to advertising or constantly having donation pledge drives. While it is nice to live in a utopian society where we can do things just because there is some positive social value to accomplish a given task, there are hard economic realities to operating a site like Wikiversity that can't be ignored. Things like network bandwidth, server equipment, and professional staff (aka via the WMF for all this) don't come cheap, even if we are sharing these costs with other WMF sister projects.
There have been several WMF projects in the past which have used direct grants from various organizations (with for-profit companies as a possibility) to help pay for various sub-projects. In educational environments, it isn't unknown to even make a legitimate business case to a for-profit corporation to provide educational experiences of some sort within an educational institution. I think it would be reasonable to discuss under what sort of circumstances such a corporate sponsorship would be considered reasonable and what would otherwise be considered "selling out".
Note that I'm not trying to suggest we should bend over backwards and structure all Wikiversity projects around a corporate model, but we shouldn't be dismissing these kind of opportunities out of hand either. It has always been a struggle to find some sort of self-sustaining economic model for content developers of free/open source content and software. And frankly most people involved with the free content movement (free as in freedom as well as beer) do a very lousy job of thinking through the economics of the situation. Regardless of even if there is nearly 100% voluntary contributions in terms of the actual content that is developed, you still have economic costs that must somehow be dealt with that are usually ignored completely.
I will note here that one of the reasons I thought Wikiversity would be a good fit with the WMF sister projects is that Wikiversity would have a chance to develop until a mature economic model could develop, as I've seen most other on-line "free" educational groups reach a point very quickly where they had to find some way to pay for the physical network requirements to operate such an environment. And usually those organizers didn't realize the actual demands until well after bandwidth capabilities were being exceeded or the 5 year old surplus computer they were using for hosting the project simply couldn't sustain the requirements of the project. Often these kind of on-line educational communities were a "hobby" that somebody had some surplus bandwidth, so they decided to donate some surplus stuff they had to see if the idea might be something useful, but only to realize the project growth quickly dominated the other more "legitimate" reasons for having the network bandwidth in the first place.
Jimbo Wales even suffered from this problem, where he did precisely the same thing in regards to Wikipedia. He had his own for-profit company (Bomis) that had some surplus bandwidth to sustain Wikipedia and Nupedia, only to discover that Wikipedia became so popular that it blew away his commercial bandwidth needs. At least in this situation the WMF has already gone through this difficult transition period successfully, and there are attempts to try and compensate for the economic issues involved.
Even if it were to concede that as a good thing, who would accept the responsibility of all the administrivia that it involves? I doubt that it would be an enlightening use of volunteer time. If we pay someone to do this the entire character of the project would change.
I do not see here any extra administrative work involved. You simply write the courses you have took in the Wikiversity in your user page with links to the course pages. You just build your own "Wikiversity study record" on your own user page. All based on trust and transparency. Shit will happen but I am pretty sure that the benefits of openness are greater than if having some "reliable record keeping body" working on this.
This boils down to certification of credentials, under various meanings of that term. The point of having a "registrar" or something similar to that would be a way to have any such claims on user pages to be verified to confirm if they in fact actually happened. It is one thing to claim to have written a particular Wikibook or Wikipedia article (which can also be independently verified), but to have claimed to have completed a given course of study implies that you have met some sort of criteria and that you have somehow "proven" that you have obtained the knowledge about that particular subject.
As can be seen with the Essjay incident on Wikipedia, an altruistic attitude on this is not going to be sufficient here. Some legitimate standards need to be established that go well beyond "yeah, I read through the material on this topic, and played around with the tests". How those standards are established is something of another thread and discussion, but there is a real need for hard standards that can be universally applied before somebody can claim to have completed a Wikiversity curriculum study experience. Claims to have completed something like this will have no value at all until you can demonstrate this knowledge and have that somehow certified.
Mind you, this is the reason why a degree is valued. It is a document that demonstrates somebody has obtained a certain amount of knowledge, and the educational institution who grants the degree is certifying that the person who holds the degree has in fact been examined to possess the knowledge represented by the degree. While there may be sometimes professional certification exams as well (like a professional engineer exam or a bar exam), quite often the degree is considered as valuable if not more so than the professional exam itself. Particularly when the degree is from a prestigious institution who has made efforts to keep their standards high.
While we may not call them "degrees" as such, I don't see why Wikiversity can't establish some sort of academic standard for students who wish to have their knowledge about a topic certified to some extent. It doesn't have to (at the moment) be a full baccalaureate program, but some sort of independently verifiable knowledge mastery and demonstration should be done other than somebody's personal claims on their user page.
For some employers beiing into new things would suggest someone who is chronically unable to focus on the task at hand, and thus not a productive employee. There are jobs where innovation is an asset, but they are a minority.
You are right again. Depending on the job you are applying for, you may or may not add your Wikipedia courses in your CV. if you are looking for a job from my research group, please do. :-)
- TeemuI also hope that eventually Wikiversity learning experiences will also be considered valuable enough that they will be mentioned on CV/resumes. I would certainly look favorably at hiring individuals who have participated in a significant fashion with Wikimedia projects, if only as a demonstration for how well they can get along with people from different cultures and philosophical backgrounds.
-- Robert Horning
Wikiversity-l mailing list Wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l
Robert Horning kirjoitti 3.5.2007 kello 14:19:
I would have to disagree with both points above, to a certain extent. The point of trying to appeal to the interests of "employers" is to provide an economically viable system for sustaining an effort like Wikiversity without having to resort to advertising or constantly having donation pledge drives. While it is nice to live in a utopian society where we can do things just because there is some positive social value to accomplish a given task, there are hard economic realities to operating a site like Wikiversity that can't be ignored.
You are right. There are hard economic realities but I think we should aim to find more creative solutions than simply copying or adapting to the model of "selling degrees". Instead of this I would look for private-public partnerships where the social and wider economical value of the Wikiversity is seen so hight that the money will come.
There have been several WMF projects in the past which have used direct grants from various organizations (with for-profit companies as a possibility) to help pay for various sub-projects. In educational environments, it isn't unknown to even make a legitimate business case to a for-profit corporation to provide educational experiences of some sort within an educational institution. I think it would be reasonable to discuss under what sort of circumstances such a corporate sponsorship would be considered reasonable and what would otherwise be considered "selling out".
I do not have anything against corporate sponsorship. However, I would at first make an appeal to corporations' social responsibility.
As can be seen with the Essjay incident on Wikipedia, an altruistic attitude on this is not going to be sufficient here. Some legitimate standards need to be established that go well beyond "yeah, I read through the material on this topic, and played around with the tests". How those standards are established is something of another thread and discussion, but there is a real need for hard standards that can be universally applied before somebody can claim to have completed a Wikiversity curriculum study experience. Claims to have completed something like this will have no value at all until you can demonstrate this knowledge and have that somehow certified.
I think ihn the Essjay incident there was not much to report. Wikipedia is based on trust and tolerance and so should Wikiversity. I do not see why in the Wikiversity there should be any "hard standards that can be universally applied". We naturally must aim to have "high standards" but they should be aimed to achieve with the wiki community effort.
In Wikiversity there will be courses with different quality. We may try to showcase those which the community considers to be high quality and this way pull up those that are not that good. We could also have some practice of "quality control" so that people who have took some course could evaluate (vote?) whatever the course should be included to some list of "high quality courses".
A course where you "read through the material on a topic, and play around with the tests" should never make it to the list.
Mind you, this is the reason why a degree is valued. It is a document that demonstrates somebody has obtained a certain amount of knowledge, and the educational institution who grants the degree is certifying that the person who holds the degree has in fact been examined to possess the knowledge represented by the degree. While there may be sometimes professional certification exams as well (like a professional engineer exam or a bar exam), quite often the degree is considered as valuable if not more so than the professional exam itself. Particularly when the degree is from a prestigious institution who has made efforts to keep their standards high.
Right. The aim of the Wikiversity should be "a prestigious institution who has made efforts to keep their standards high". Only this way the studies taken in the Wikiversity can be seen valuable.
While we may not call them "degrees" as such, I don't see why Wikiversity can't establish some sort of academic standard for students who wish to have their knowledge about a topic certified to some extent. It doesn't have to (at the moment) be a full baccalaureate program, but some sort of independently verifiable knowledge mastery and demonstration should be done other than somebody's personal claims on their user page.
I think the "high standard course" (or whatever it should be called) list will do this. If your course in your user page are all from the list, good for you. If they are all some "read and click tests" courses, clever people will get the point.
I also hope that eventually Wikiversity learning experiences will also be considered valuable enough that they will be mentioned on CV/resumes. I would certainly look favorably at hiring individuals who have participated in a significant fashion with Wikimedia projects, if only as a demonstration for how well they can get along with people from different cultures and philosophical backgrounds.
Exactly. I guess this is what we are practicing here right now.
- Teemu
----------------------------------------------- Teemu Leinonen http://www.uiah.fi/~tleinone/ +358 50 351 6796 Media Lab http://mlab.uiah.fi University of Art and Design Helsinki -----------------------------------------------
wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org