[Foundation-l] Wikiversity - courses

[Cormac Lawler]

Hello,

There was an article published today on Wikiversity in "The Chronicle":
http://chronicle.com/free/2005/12/2005121601t.htm
(I was one of the people interviewed for this, and just to
pre-emptively point out an inaccuracy - apart from the obvious "2.5
million articles in *10* languages" typo - that I didn't say that I
want Wikiversity to "focus on original research", but that I said I
see research as playing a central role in Wikiversity.) However, the
article isn't bad, and is reasonably fair.

But the real purpose of this mail is to clarify the idea of
Wikiversity and courses. According to the relevant board meeting
notes*, the recommendation is to "exclude online courses". There is
much confusion about this, and some despair (contributors saying they
will give up on the project if courses are excluded). What needs to be
clarified is whether courses are to be excluded in Wikiversity's
initial phase but included with time, or whether courses will be
excluded altogether.

* http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings/November_13%2C_2005

The 'safe' proposal until now has been to make wikiversity a
repository of learning materials. This, I presume, would include
lesson plans/curricula as well as actual resources like
reading/listening comprehension exercises, flash cards, discursive
questions on particular advertisements, etc.

But, for a start, I'm not sure that this line between resources and
courses exists. I would say that if we who are creating these
resources are to be genuinely engaged (and to make them genuinely
useful), we will need to have some sort of use of these resources, or
at least some of them. The reading comprehension can be printed and
used by any language teacher anywhere; the flash cards and (possibly)
discursive questions likewise. But consider an activity like
critiquing two sources of online information in order to write a
neutral encylopedic article. This is provoking higher order thinking
in order to develop another resource, namely Wikipedia. I think this
is the idea behind what JWSchmidt is proposing in his advocacy of
"service-provider courses" - which will act as interfaces between
Wikimedia projects, and hopefully reconnecting projects where they
have diverged. I've written about this myself in numerous places,
including:
* http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity_%28overview%29
* http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikiversity/Modified_project_proposal
(which has my proposed objects of Wikiversity, namely: materials,
learning communities, research)

Personally, I think that the inclusion/exclusion of courses is more
complex that people might imagine. Some current or proposed courses
are along the didactic (ie teacher informs, students re-produce
material) model, some are along the critical model (as above) and some
are more "practical" (eg. write computer code). If the board is
nervous about the didactic model (eg. as Angela said that she was
concerned that Wikimedia would be ridiculed if Wikiversity was widely
advertised and (I presume) wasn't ready for incoming students), then
it could still allow for the remaining two models (which ironically
are at polar ends of the pedagogical spectrum), without too much fear
of backlash from the press or wider public. However, I would add that
excluding the didactic model for now would bitterly disappoint some
contributors.

Basically, the issue is that the most recent board decision wasn't
very well explained. I am aware the board itself is looking for
clarification, but it has just created more confusion than anything. I
particularly invite board members to respond both *as individuals* and
also to explain a bit more on their last decision. That's what I'm
trying to gather here, as much as getting the wider community's
perspective(s).

Thanks,

Cormac / Cormaggio