Wikimedia in higher education/2013/University of Sydney

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Wikimedia in Higher Education Symposium
University of Sydney, Australia, 5 April, 2013
Camperdown Campus, Old Teachers College Building (A22)

About[edit | edit source]

This one day symposium brought academics and editors together, to discuss best practise for using Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia and Wikiversity as platforms for education within the Australian higher education system.

Background[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia Education Programs have had mixed success in countries where they have been run (Austria, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Egypt, Germany, India, Italy, Macedonia, Mexico, Russia, United Kingdom, or United States) under the auspices of the Wikimedia Foundation. For example:

  1. India: Plagued with problems[factual?]
  2. United States and Canada mildly successful at engaging students and resulting in new and valued content contributions but has had limited success in converting students to long-term contributors[factual?]
  3. Arabic speaking countries: There are early signs of the program being considered a success in terms of both content and longer-term contributors[factual?]

There are numerous instances of "Wikipedia in education" course-work already being run in Australia[factual?], without incident; however they are either not disclosed or not well advertised, and invariably there has been little opportunity to discuss these in an academic setting within the Australian academic community. There is also a course which has successfully integrated Wikinews into learning outcomes; however there are concerns about the scalability of this idea.[factual?]

Images[edit | edit source]

More images: [1]

Speakers[edit | edit source]

Program[edit | edit source]

When What & Who Where
8:30-9:00 Registration & Session Sign-up Writing Hub Common Room, 329
9:00-9:10 Opening and welcome Teachers College Lecture Theatre 306
9:10-9:30 Opening guest speaker: Toby Hudson, 99of9, tobyhudson University of Sydney (USYD), Why use Wikimedia projects in higher education?
9:30-10:30 Keynote: Kerry Kilner, Kerry Kilner, University of Queensland (UQ), Teaching Research Methods Using Wikipedia, Q&A
10:30-10:45 Morning Tea Writing Hub Common Room, 329 (TC)
10:45-12:00 Presentations (20 minutes each, with 5-minute Q&A) Teachers College Lecture Theatre 306
10:45 Liam Wyatt, Wittylama, wittylama, Queensland University of Technology, Wikipedia: The endless palimpest
11:10 James Neill, University of Canberra, Higher education and the social ecology of Wikimedia sister projects
11:35 Matthew Todd (USYD)
12:00-1:00 Interactive Sessions
12:00-1:00, Option 1 Workshop led by Rebecca Plumbe, Arts eLearning Writing Hub Tutorial Room, 330 (TC)
12:00-1:00, Option 2 Roundtable discussions led by Leigh Blackall (based on this proposal), La Trobe University: Leigh Blackall, Toby Hudson, Frances Di Lauro, Steven King,Angela Shetler (USYD) and audience Tutorial Room 331 (TC)
1:00 Lunch
2:00-3:30 Presentations (25 minutes each, with 5-minute Q&A) Teachers College Lecture Theatre 448
2:00-2:30 Salvatore Babones (USYD), Education as socialization: Wikipedia in the classroom
2:30-3:00 Stuart Fraser (USYD), Wikipedia as a learning and teaching tool for senior physiology students
3:00-3:30 Mylee Joseph, (Aliaretiree) and Kathryn Barwick, Rubicon49bce (State Library of New South Wales), Innovation Project and Wikipedia at State Library of NSW
3:40-4:30 Panel Discussion: Kerrie Henderson, Policy Manager (USYD), John Vandenberg, John Vandenberg, Treasurer and past-President WMAU, Salvatore Babones (USYD), James Neill (UC), Stuart Fraser (USYD)
4:30 Closing and refreshments Writing Hub Common Room, 329 (TC)

Intended outcomes[edit | edit source]

Short term measures of success
  • Engagement of academics who are already using Wikimedia in education.
  • Expertise shared with academics who are interested but are not yet using Wikimedia.
  • Report on the symposium to be provided by the University of Sydney and released as CC-BY-SA to provide:
    1. evidence-based recommendations on best-practise for education using English Wikipedia in Australia,
    2. suggested list of ways to integrate other Wikimedia projects into higher education,
    3. recommendation on how to navigate between commonalities in student confidentiality policies and the disclosure expected by English Wikipedia.
    4. summary of other legal issues regarding using Wikimedia projects within Australian higher education,
  • Journal articles written by attendees about the use of Wikimedia in education to be submitted to relevant journals/conferences
Medium term measures of success
  • Two well-advertised instances of English Wikipedia being used in the classroom in the second semester of 2013
  • 100 Australian students as new English Wikipedia contributors, with pseudonyms known to by least the Wikimedia Australia membership, and more publicly if legally possible.
Suggestions for future goals
  • List of Australian higher education teaching projects which use Wikimedia projects
  • Well-developed and promoted "featured" examples of the use each of the different Wikimedia sister projects in higher education in Australia. Also include example of the use of multi-language functionality of the projects.

Ideas and issues about ways to manage university Wikimedia projects[edit | edit source]

  • Types of assessment tasks?
  • Which projects?
  • Training?
  • Monitoring/quality?
  • Wikieducator overlap?
See also

See also[edit | edit source]

  1. Wikimedia in higher education/Australia
  2. Budget
  3. Travel assistance
  4. w:en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia in Higher Education Symposium, March 2014 (followup symposium in 2014)

External links[edit | edit source]