Web architecture for Wikis/Wikiversity Main Page

This is only a copy of Wikiversity:Main_Page and is being used by the Web architecture for Wikis Learning Project to discuss the architectural and design aspects of this page.

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Welcome to Wikiversity Set learning free with 20,474 learning resources and growing.

"When the pupil is ready to learn, a teacher will appear." -Zen koan (discuss)

Welcome Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning. We invite teachers, students, and researchers to join us in creating open educational resources and collaborative learning communities. To learn more about Wikiversity, try a guided tour or start editing now.

Today's Featured Project Electric Circuit Analysis Electric Circuit Analysis deals with the fundamentals of electrical circuits, their components and the mathematical tools used to represent and analyse electrical circuits. By the end of the course, the student will be able to confidently analyse and build simple electrical circuits. Parts of this course include: Circuit Variables, Circuit Elements, Simple Resistive Circuits, Techniques of Circuit Analysis, Kirchhoff's Voltage Law problems, Kirchhoff's Current Law problems, Nodal Analysis problems, Mesh Analysis problems. The course comprises a total of about 25 pages with a high layout design quality. Course creators from other disciplines can use this course for ideas about organisation, layout and design of wiki courses. The course itself is suitable for non-specialists from secondary education upwards. Visit this resource · see more featured content Community Start editing, join the discussion (on the colloquium) and become part of the Wikiversity community! For real-time advice or assistance, you can join our Wikiversity's IRC channel, or our mailing list, or add learner questions on our help desk. The community portal is a listing of notices, projects, activities, guidelines and resources, and learn more about us through the history of Wikiversity.

Educational Picture of the Day Crude Oil Distillation This is a diagram of a typical, atmospheric pressure crude oil distillation tower used in petroleum refining. Click on the image for a full size version which you can freely re-use and modify. Print it and use it for your lessons, integrate it into your pages on Wikiversity, or use it in other learning resources and websites. Use the links below to find more images like this one. Oil distillation images - Chemical engineering images - Chemistry images This image is a part of the Educational Media Awareness Campaign, raising awareness among educators about the availability and usage of millions of free internet media in education. Development At Wikiversity we are committed both to conventional learning patterns and resources, and to innovation and experimentation. Wikiversity is open to reconceptualising how web education can occur and how open educational resources can be made, and we are open to new ideas about the use of the Mediawiki environment for learning and research. Check out and help develop our learning projects and how learning works on Wikiversity, see how Wikiversity can help you, and explore how to get involved and start adding content. The sandbox server project is also a centre of learning experimentation.

Explore Wikiversity Catalogue | Guided tours ► Schools ► Portals ► Resources ► Learning projects ► Help News 2013 X-ray astronomy is a new lecture for the course Principles of radiation astronomy, try it out and take the quiz The original research project searching for early telescopes is a Special Story for This month in GLAM The course at Wikiversity, Principles of radiation astronomy, is described in This Month in Education. Help Creating educational content at Wikiversity (teacher-oriented tour). Starting out at Wikiversity (student-oriented tour). If you missed the main welcome page, try again! ► Help

Wikiversity's sister projects Wikiversity is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other multilingual and free-content projects: Wikipedia Free-content encyclopedia Wiktionary Dictionary and thesaurus Wikiquote Collection of quotations Wikinews Free-content news Wikispecies Directory of species Wikibooks Free textbooks and manuals Wikisource Free-content library Commons Shared media repository Meta-Wiki Wikimedia project coordination MediaWiki Free software development Wikidata Free knowledge base Wikivoyage Open travel guide

Main Page

Other pages that explore proposed changes: Wikiversity:Main page design changes and .Talk:Main Page.

Critique of the current main page

The current Main Page was first designed at User:Trevor MacInnis/MainPage starting in the first week after the Wikiversity project launch. Additional development of that design took place at Wikiversity:Main Page/Design. Like the original Main Page design, the current design arguably still contains many links that are irrelevant to new visitors. The current design was influenced by experienced Wikipedia participants who have since pehraps not contributed significantly to the Wikiversity project. As such, the current Main Page may serve best experienced Wikipedians who follow a link to Wikiversity.

As a young project, Wikiversity needs is to attract new participants, most of whom may not be experienced wiki editors. Does the main page serve the needs of Wikiversity or is it an artifact resulting from the efforts of a few Wikipedians who created it and then went back to Wikipedia?

Main Page namespace

Which namespace should the Main Page be in? The current Main Page is in the "Wikiversity:" namespace because it is viewed as a "meta page" about the Wikiversity project. An alternative would be to return the Main Page to the main namespace so that it can take on the primary function of being a learning resource; a page where new visitors can learn about the Wikiversity project.

Main Page target audience

The Main Page should be designed for the least knowledgeable visitors with the least wiki experience. These "Wikiversity naive" visitors need to be efficiently guided to basic information about wiki, the purpose and mission of Wikiversity and the current status of Wikiversity (essentially, a content development effort). New visitors who are not experienced wiki editors need to be shown how easy it is to participate by editing Wikiversity pages. More experienced wiki users can take care of themselves and make use of the pages linked to in the "navigation" and "community" side boxes. Can we identify a few key types of Wikiversity Main Page visitors and re-design the main page so as to better serve them?

Current redesign is 0.3, available here.