[Foundation-l] Vote to create Wikiversity Vote

[Robert Scott Horning]

Cormac Lawler wrote:

>On 11/7/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>  
>
>>For my part I think Wikiversity is a great idea, but I don't see where it
>>benefits from being part of Wikimedia. Wikimedia is primarily a media
>>company, and a university and a media company are only loosely tied with one
>>another. Yes, books need to be used by a university, but a) most
>>universities don't make all their own books, and b) Wikibooks can handle
>>that part of the project without being part of the university (but merely
>>working hand-in-hand with the university).
>>
>>If there is enough support for this project to be at all successful it would
>>be no problem to start it up as its own organization separate from the
>>Wikimedia Foundation. That doesn't mean it would compete with the WMF, in
>>fact the two would likely co-exist quite amicably.  <*SNIP*>
>>    
>>
>
>
>There was a discussion about Wikiversity on IRC last night, as part of
>the Wikimedia Research Network, details and log of which can be found
>here:
>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network/Meetings/2005-11-06
>
>I think you're raising some interesting points here - I think what's
>emerging for me is that some people are quite nervous about
>Wikiversity being a Wikimedia project - if it aspires to be an
>e-learning resource.  <*SNIP*>
>  
>
I fail to understand what the whole issue is here.  This was a vote to 
put a project called Wikiversity onto its own seperate MediaWiki domain 
where the participants could organize themselves using the software 
while the server itself would be operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. 
 Am I missing anything here?  Is there anything else going on?

While I would agree that if eventually the group trying to get 
Wikiversity going were to seek accreditation and a more formal academic 
standing, it would be a good idea to establish a seperate legal entity 
that would be dealing with those academic standards and to work with the 
accreditation organizations to improve the standards of Wikiversity.  As 
a long-term goal perhaps this is something that needs to be discussed 
and certainly this is something that could be done both from within the 
community as well as something that could be done with the cooperation 
of the Wikimedia Foundation board.

Don't get ahead of ourselves here, however.  There is a long road before 
any of that can be accomplished, and to start with some simple 
instruction can be perpared with "on-line" classes and other hallmarks 
of a learning environment that don't need this seperate legal entity. 
 Some incredible opportunities can be made available with a project like 
Wikiversity, and the important thing to keep in mind is that by using 
some Wiki software for organizing the website for this project, we can 
attract people in the creation of Wikiversity that would otherwise not 
be technically capable of participating.  There is also a social network 
between the various Wikimedia projects that can also serve to support 
Wikiversity, including many who are very academically inclined simply 
because of other projects like Wikibooks or Wikipedia.  In this case the 
whole community is much stronger than the sum of the parts, and there 
are resources to draw upon that are already with this community.  This 
project should take advantage of those resources and already established 
"communities" of support.

There is also a huge opportunity to draw upon collaborative writing as a 
resource for instruction.  I've already used this myself for some 
college-level instruction for some courses I taught, where I used 
MediaWiki software to help write documents together as a part of the 
curriculm.  It can't be used for all subjects, but is an interesting 
area of human learning and knowledge that I don't think has been fully 
explored or even used much at all.

One of the huge problems I saw with other "on-line" educational 
communities is that they start with a good idea by a committed 
individual.  He usually is paying for the internet server space with his 
own money and this is something of a hobby.  This project stikes a chord 
and develops a community that begins to grow fast and become so large 
that the one individual who was helping to pay for the physical 
computers quickly became overwhelmed with the task of trying to keep the 
physical equipment going rather than trying to work on the social issues 
that were developing within the community. (Sound familiar Jimbo?)

At some point it becomes expensive enough that the people who are good 
at organizing the school itself have to deal with fundraising issues to 
the point it completely overwhelms them just trying to keep the existing 
equipment going and deal with bandwidth issues so that something can be 
accomplished at all.

The advantage of working with the Wikimedia Foundation is that the 
fundraising activities for simply paying for the server and the physical 
equipment that runs the internet services has already been organized. 
 This is also precisely the reason why so many people want to have their 
"pet project" idea become a sister project to the Wikimedia 
Foundation... because this support system is already in place.  The 
legal tax status for doing the fundraising in many countries has already 
been thought through, and if Wikiversity were to go off on its own it 
would have to do all of that all over again, including establishing 
"chapters" in other countries.  This legwork has already been 
accomplished, and the real question is why should this work be 
duplicated by a seperate organization?

-- 
Robert Scott Horning