Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/February 2007

January | March

LiquidThreads®

LiquidThreads^® have been a topic of discussion at Meta-Wiki for a while. I've put the first instance of {{liquidThreads}} at Talk:Vandal Fighting and Talk:Bots. Next test will be on School talk:Computer Science and on Topic talk:Artificial Intelligence replacing {{topictalk}}. See Wikiversity:Content development, Wikiversity:Templates and Template talk:LiquidThreads for more info. CQ 07:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

CQ, Why focus on those pages, rather then something like Colloquium? (Is there an option for turning it on/off for an individual visitor? (There isn't any discussion at Vandal Fighting whatsoever, for instance). Just wondering. Historybuff 12:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Historybuff: notice the word "Forum" links to the Colloquium. Maybe I should make it more obvious... This is only the first pass for the template. The idea is to create some continuity for discussion that "move around"... I'm thinking for example that discussion about the template itself should be at template talk:LiquidThreads and discussion regarding its deployment should be here. The LiquidThreads idea is still in pre-alpha stage (planning, testing...) --CQ 18:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

What does the template do, other than put a box on the talk page?--mikeu 01:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Currently you can add a "source" and "destination" to the template tag to link to a previous discussion and suggest a place where the discussion may go. For example, Talk:Wikio#WikiCast is a thread about WikiCast that should move to its own talk page at Talk:WikiCast, which links to a content development project Topic talk:Internet Audio and Video. Topic:Internet Audio and Video includes WikiCast as one of several webcasting projects. It's pretty primative at this point, but could help chain discussions together across talk pages. --CQ 18:27, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Single discussion site for coordination of Wikiversity with Wikibooks and other Wikimedia projects

I first posted this on the Meta-Wiki site, but then I realized this might be a better place to talk.

There should be a single location for discussion of the similarities, differences, and co-ordination of Wikibooks and Wikiversity. I found several sites with this discussion:

Meta-Wiki: Talk:Wikiversity, No to Wikiversity and a bunch of other discussion sites moved to Wikiversity.

Wikibooks: b:Wikiversity b:Talk:Wikiversity

Wikiversity: This page, Wikibooks, Wikiversity and Wikibooks services, Wikiversity:Approved Wikiversity project proposal, Wikiversity talk:Approved Wikiversity project proposal, Wikiversity:Scope, and others.

I personally think that the two sites have too much overlap to deserve separate projects. I believe they should be integrated under one name. Because Wikiversity is the higher abstraction and includes other materials like slides, presentations, etc. I believe it should also include textbooks. As I understand Wikiversity is in trial status until April 2007, I suggest merging Wikibooks into Wikiversity. If this is not going to happen, they will need strong coordination to ensure there are good interwiki links and no duplication of material.

Also, how are Wikiversity pages going to include material from Wikipedia, Wikisource, Commons, and other Wikimedia projects in a cohesive and consistent way? Right now interwiki links from Wikiversity seem very haphazard and vary from article to article. Perhaps we could have an interwiki template automatically included on every page? -kslays 141.154.122.29 17:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that all serious discussions of merging Wikibooks and Wikiversity ended on August 14, 2005 when the head of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees made the removal of Wikiversity from Wikibooks official, apparently with the intention that the Wikiversity-related pages at Wikibooks be moved to a new wiki where that content would not be in conflict with the limited mission of Wikibooks and could be developed in line with his call that we "free the curriculum". It might make sense to have a Wikiversity-Wikibooks coordination page at the multilingual hub. --JWSchmidt 18:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

What is the benefit of absolutely no duplication of material? This is often raised as a necessity and I am curious as to your perception of the actual benefit accrued to yourself or others. Regarding your proposal to merge the projects. I, and some others, tend to treat Wikibooks like our on campus bookstore. We look there first, or at least eventually, for free online textbooks to refer to. It is a good place to seek quick references since they tend to keep a neat tidy library textbook look and feel about their projects. I have no desire for each and every Wikiversity project to be shoe horned into a textbook look and feel. For historical reasons; the Board and Wikipedia community was reluctant to attempt a Wikiversity, fearing an adverse impact to Wikipedia, Wikiversity was prototyped at Wikibooks rather than setup a separate huge project to judge its feasibility. So the integrated project has already been tried and found wanting. The Wikibooks authors seemed to like it no more than more casual Wikiversity participants like myself. Indeed a coalition of them got Wikiversity thrown out of the Wikibooks virtual space and some serious effort was expended trying to get Wikiversity canceled entirely as infeasible or as duplicated effort to Wikibooks. Regarding including textbooks at Wikiversity. If you feel it is necessary to have configuration control on textbook content referenced within lesson plans that can probably be arranged by uploading PDF files, linking to specific past pages in the Wikibooks or Wikiversity database, or uploading the textbook you wish available in frozen form to some other site then linking to it. Mirwin 03:05, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the links b:Wikiversity, m:No to Wikiversity, etc., these pages were set up during the planning stage of developing Wikiversity as a fully-realised project proposal - a process which was carried out between Meta and Wikibooks. Now that Wikiversity is a separate project, those pages exist as essentially archived discussions. There is certainly overlap between individual projects (particularly Wikibooks and Wikiversity), but I think that we should look to cooperation between projects as opposed to merging them (this proposal has always been around, but was effectively rejected by the Wikibooks community). I like John's idea of having a coordination space at the beta wiki - though the beta wiki is, unfortunately, not hugely active. And on interwiki linking, this is possible between projects, and between languages within projects - info can be found at m:Help:Interwiki linking (which itself is an interwiki link ;-)) By "haphazard", do you simply mean that different people/pages use interwiki linking in a non-consistent manner? What are you proposing people do? (By a "template", do you mean a bit of code that will be on every page telling people how to manage links?) Cormaggio ^beep 01:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for the excellent and clear responses! I now agree they should not be merged. I do think there should be a consistent outline for links from Wikiversity pages to Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Commons, and other projects when appropriate. I like how Wikispecies has Wikipedia links on the left column. For Wikiversity, I was thinking an Wikipedia style infobox template could automatically link to the Wikipedia, Wikisource, and maybe Wiktionary articles with the same name. It would work for Biology, but there would be troubles for things more specific. Also, links from Wikipedia to corresponding Wikiversity articles would drive traffic to Wikiversity. I guess I'm interpreting Wikiversity as sort of a framework/syllubus/study guide that provides pointers to other Wikimedia material. Right now many Wikiversity pages seem to basically be written in textbook format themselves instead of being organizational guides/learning timecourses that include Wikibook/Wikipedia links. But they are very inconsistent. I'm hesitant to edit a lot of Wikiversity pages if interwiki linking could be done a consistent way automatically. So yes, Cormaggio, I mean a bit of code that would be on every page where you list the materials (from whichever Wiki) used to study the Wikiversity topic. -kslays 141.154.122.29 22:00, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, there's no such thing as "automatic" interwiki linking (unless someone has written a bot to do so). Links are added between languages of the same project by adding, for example, "[[de:Wikiversity:Cafeteria]]" (which goes to the corresponding page in the German version of this project (ie Wikiversity), and which appears as a link from the left-hand side of the page. Links to other projects are added by using the appropriate prefix (as detailed on the page linked above). However, there is a way of making links to Wikiversity more obvious by adding the w:Template:Wikiversity (eg., on Wikipedia, by adding the code {{Wikiversity}} to any page on Wikipedia - which will make a link to the Wikiversity page of exactly the same name). If you want to specify a different page title, use the "|" divider (as outlined briefly on that page). This template simply needs to be added to individual projects for it to work - though I haven't checked yet if it exists on each project. I presume this would be that "bit of code"..? Cormaggio ^beep 23:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I took that template and filled it out to something more along the lines of what I was thinking as best as I am able. I don't think the upper-right corner is the best place for it, but I don't know how to change it. Also, the icons aren't perfect (the Wikipedia is .png, and Wiktionary is -en and .png and illegible). Here's what I wrote, so fix it up and make it a template if you want, then I'll start putting it on Wikiversity pages. -kslays 141.154.122.29 19:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Find more information on Colloquium/archives/February 2007 by searching Wikiversity's sister projects:

Textbooks from Wikibooks
Encyclopedic articles from Wikipedia
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
Definitions from Wiktionary

I copied the Wikipedia "Sisterprojects" template to make Template:Sisterprojectsearch. There is also Template:Sisterprojects - and Wikiversity:Sister projects (which I've just created) needs work. Cormaggio ^beep 11:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Excellent! Thank you, Cormaggio. I made the template a little wider to stop the word-wrap, and was looking for pages to put it on when I noticed that there are a ton of Wikiversity pages that are moved from Wikibooks (Category:Pages moved from Wikibooks). This wholesale copying doesn't make any sense to me - I thought that the reason Wikiversity was going forward is that it was different enough not to have pages written like textbooks. That it would organize a lesson plan (or whatever you want to call it, learning project, etc.) that uses textbooks hosted on Wikibooks. Some examples of pages written like textbooks: Cell Biology, Basic cardiac anatomy, The Atom, Energy, and Composition. Maybe we should have a cleanup tag along the lines of, "This page is written like a textbook, please tailor into a learning project. Please see Help:Contents and Wikiversity:Learning. You can organize the page like Template:Learning project boilerplate if you like." What do you think? -kslays 20:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

We have Template:Welcome and advise. --JWSchmidt 21:21, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

So should I add that template to the top of pages like Cell Biology, Basic cardiac anatomy, The Atom, Energy, and Composition? I mean, I'll eventually try to organize them myself, but a tag for pages where I'm not an expert seems reasonable so other people are encouraged to make them more, um, wikiversic. -kslays 22:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to do what you think is best. In the case of Cell Biology, I must challenge you to show me a "textbook" that is a short wiki page that invites wiki participants to participate in collaborative wiki editing projects. --JWSchmidt 23:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Oops, I was looking at the wikibook for cell bio. Thanks for the encouragement, I'll go ahead and be bold. -kslays 02:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Japanese Wikiversity

I hope it to be. What can I do for it ? --Tmnk 15:56, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
I found this. --Tmnk 16:16, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
I found this too.

Try this.--Rayc 18:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I requested it. Thank you. :) --Tmnk 18:46, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Might issue an invitation to Japanese Language participantsSpecial:Search?search=japanese+language&fulltext=Search to support the request and participate at the Japanese Wikiversity. Could gain some early participation and surely students of matters and language Japanese could add a bit while polishing Japanese skills or knowledge. Mirwin

These folks might be interested. http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:Katakana#Talk_Page_copied_from_.5B.5BTalk:Hiragana_.26_Katakana.5D.5D Mirwin 12:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Youtube-versity

I'm wondering what the community thinks about linking to youtube video. On the plus side, you have a massive video database that contains educational material on virtually every subject (see some examples at User:Rayc/Youtube), and you get learning resources for people that are more visual instead of text based. On the negative side you get into very murky legal waters over verification that something is free or if it is an illegal upload, and link rot. I'm interested in peoples ideas on this subject.--Rayc 20:31, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Technically speaking

How would this work? Does the Wikiversity server have to process the video? Robert Elliott 00:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

No, just link to it. You might even talk about the video in the lesson.--Rayc 01:35, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Personally,

I think it might be better to hold off until they clarify their licensing and stabilize on public domain or free materials. Do they provide email adresses for originators such that we can request an upload of a useful video to Wikiversity servers? That way we know the video is free and avoid link rot scenario. Mirwin 03:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's a fantastic idea. Google video, Youtube, myspace ... as long as it is bonafide content, it can be made to work. As for Mirwin's point -- its a good one -- maybe we can develop a "media template" which is searched for to ensure that there is no "bit rot" in our courses. Historybuff 14:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Different options

I think at the very least you could have wikiversity users post videos on youtube specifically for wikiversity. You could even mandate that all video made for wikiversity have a disclamer at the beginning to ensure that there won't be copyright issues and link rot. This would not only make vidoe an economically feasable teaching method (if youtube is the one that bears the cost hosting the video) but is in line with wikiversity's whole goal of getting unique learning tools online for free. This could be fantastic for pages like English as a second language where people could get video lessons that would give both visual and aditory stimuli. Also fantastic for teaching kids. I know the BBC teaches language with its Muzzy cartoons. I think there's even a way to embed the video from youtube onto the specific webpage. Djdoobwah24 07:12, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

If the Wikiversity project tried to use the youtube website to host Wikiversity video content it would violate the terms of use: "your use of the Website as permitted is solely for your personal, noncommercial use". There are other sites that welcome and host educational video content such as Internet Archive. --JWSchmidt 14:24, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

-Ah. Didn't quite understand teh terms of use I suppose. Even if we don't use youtube as the host, I still think that there should be some way to upload video on this site. I just think it would be an invaluable recourse. I already mentioned its application in teaching foreign languages. I suppose I just see it as the best way teach cetain material and I want to see wikiversity fully realize its potential as a free learning centre.--Djdoobwah24 23:14, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

-I suppose I have one more question on this topic. So I can create an educational video and upload it to youtube as long as its completely my own project. No problem there. Can I then create a lesson in wikiversity that has external links to my youtube video in between different lessons which I can tell people they should watch before continuing the lesson? For example:

"In the Kitchen:

Note- Before continuing the lesson watch the video here (external link)

Vocabulary: Oven- X, Stove- X, Apron- X, etc."

Would something like that be OK? Or would it be discouraged because the lesson requires an external link to function? If so, what if we added optional "enhanced" lessons at the end of a regular lesson that followed the above example? -- Djdoobwah24 23:38, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

The way to upload video to Wikiversity is to first make it an Ogg file. Example: Editing tutorial. We have some pages such as Topic:Internet Audio and Video, but we could use a good set of clear tutorial pages showing how to make and upload video. If you have video that you do not want to convert to ogg format and upload, you can just link to it from Wikiversity pages. There are some examples at Wikiversity Reports. --JWSchmidt 01:07, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

-Thank you so much for your help. I promise this is my last question. Is wikimedia going to create a tool to embed video on a page or even just stream video within your browser instead when you click the link instead of being forced to download every video clip (at least I think you have to download them all, I couldn't figure out any other way when I went over to the page). If they aren't planning on allowing us to stream or embed video, where can I formally suggest that they undertake such a project? Djdoobwah24 21:58, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

This is something we (the Wikiversity community) should stay on top of by way of Topic:MediaWiki. Take a look at m:Embed Media. --JWSchmidt 22:42, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

New discussion about using flash video in Wikimedia Foundation wiki projects. --JWSchmidt 16:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

A copyright question

I'm just beginning to explore this project, and hope I have the right place for this question. I'm curious about the GFDL licencing of Wikiversity -- basically I'm wondering, are there sections of Wikiversity that are not automatically licenced in the GFDL? As much as it makes sense to make instructional materials freely available, I'm having trouble imagining a creative writing learning group, for example, where a student can't workshop a piece of writing without relinquishing rights to it. Although it seems to be currently inactive, the writing centre also seems like a similar situation. Does Wikiversity have some workaround for this sort of thing that I'm missing? Bailey 03:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

No. If you hit the "edit" button, you go to a page that says: "You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL....Please note: If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it." --JWSchmidt 04:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The rest of the story. It is quite easy to link to external sites by putting square brackets around an internet URL. Other sites exist which provide free web space such as http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome. So if a group of workshop writers wish to retain rights to a particular work or all works it would be quite easy to discuss general techniques at Wikiversity for free propagation under the GFDL and specific works at another location for automatic retention of standard copyright. Mirwin 06:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. As someone who edits Wikipedia, I'm certainly familiar with that little edit button warning. Still, this is the only Wikimedia project I've encountered where it's occured to me that having every single scrap of text automatically licenced into the GFDL doesn't immediately seem like a natural extension of the project's goals in all cases. Finding free webspace makes sense as a work-around, but being able to provide a centralized space for writing/workshopping does seem useful and intuitive in an online writing discussion group. Also, wikimarkup seems like it could be a fairly powerful tool in and of itself for, for lack of a better term, marking up pieces of writing. I realize this is only one small area of Wikiversity I'm speaking to here, but the thought did occur to me.

This leads me to another question. Does being a Wikimedia project automatically mean all text generated on the project's wiki automatically must be free-as-in-speech-not-beer content? I'm not saying that most of it shouldn't be, but in this exact case I can imagine an advantage to being able to set aside a small chunk of space that's under different posting terms. If it's impossible, that's fine too, but I'd be interested in knowing if it's even a possibility that could be explored by Wikiversity sometime down the road, or if it's unilaterally ruled out by the project's charter. Cheers, Bailey 10:40, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

You make excellent points. I think it is a philisophical issue that will need to be addressed at some point with the Wikimedia Foundation Board. Our servers are funded by donations of people expecting the money to be applied to advancing the availability of free knowledge. By setting aside proprietary zones for say .... electrical circuit design or your previous example of writing workshops .... does Wikiversity accelerate the delivery of free knowledge more or less than if it insists on a single easily applied rule that if you are working or playing with knowledge here it is henceforth copyleft to the entire planet? How do we collect data to address this question or are we content to have the current Board merely make a binding judgement call for Wikiversity without any hard data or experimentation? Something to keep in mind is that clear easily enforceable rules make volunteer projects easy to manage without a lot of effort. At the moment all text data submitted to Wikiversity is GFDL. Once we start creating special cases additional special cases will inevitably come along to further complicate the local environment. Mirwin 11:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you're saying -- your circuit board example definately helps me wrap my head around the issue. I suppose part of it comes down to the question of whether Wikiversity's mission is free-as-in-speech instruction & learning materials for the sole purpose of creating more free-as-in-speech knowledge, or if providing free-as-speech instruction can be considered a worthwhile contribution to the goal of creating free knowledge on it's own. It's also an issue of where you draw the line, since obviously anyone reading a Wikipedia article could conceivably apply the free knowledge they gained to the creation of proprietary knowledge. Practically, I still think I'd favor a non-copyleft option for some very limited situatons, but there are elements to Wikiversity's theorized model of operation that I'm still having difficultly imagining at this early juncture. I do hope the larger philosophical issue gets some air time sometime further down the line, once WV's general practices are established. Cheers, Bailey 13:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

---

A similar problem

I have experienced a similar situation. My best and most talented student will not submit his assignments for display on Wikiversity because he wants to retain full ownership of his artwork (for storyboarding). Yet, he still wants me to spend the time to examine and comment on his finished assignments.

Therefore, I have the urge to put the following statement on my lessons:

"Participation in Wikiversity is not free. To participate, you must contribute your finished assignments to the public domain so that others will benefit from what you have learned."

My worry is this will only add to the confusion. Robert Elliott 19:13, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The Wikiversity Mission statement was designed to include both:
1) learning materials that can be used freely outside of Wikiversity
and
2) learning projects and communities that function within the confines of the Wikiversity website.
Some people will find ways to make use of Wikiversity learning resources for their own personal gain. Wikiversity volunteers have to decide if they are willing to involve themselves with projects that extend outside of Wikiversity into domains that are not covered by a free and open copyleft license. I'm not sure how being open and explicit about such decisions should "add to the confusion". --JWSchmidt 20:14, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

If a participant disagrees with Robert's methods or requirements, they can easily fork his current materials and begin mixed mode operations designed as illustrated above to secure their personal copyrights. The only thing they lose, and it is a huge loss, is free as in beer access to his personal expertise and energy applied to their efforts. We have started to address these kinds of issues with http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Productive_Forking_and_Tailoring_is_Encouraged. Which is merely a local statement or implementation of the rights the copyleft gives the entire planet. Eventually most of the best artisans should be able to consider donating some, not all, of their work to the copyleft environment as part of their advertising or educational startup budgets. Hard on people who only ever have a few good ideas but then it is hard for them professionally already. Mirwin 21:26, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

To that last part, ouch. This is where it seems worthwhile to draw the distinction between an electrical circuit and a more purely artisitic endevour. In the case of creative writing, for example, you're not just asking a student to give up a couple of bucks in potential profit -- you're possibly asking him to forfeit the exposure and ultimately recongnition that might have come if he had the opportunity to widely publish with the help of a for-profit publishing house (likely to take issue with going to the trouble to publish and promote a piece of writing to which they can't obtain exclusive rights). Whether or not that person might have a hard time making it professionally is not the point -- even if a person only has one good creative idea in their entire life, that doesn't really do much to lessen the feeling of loss that comes from not being able to share their art, and knowing one won't be able to in the future, except in the (presently limited) avenues afforded by the GFDL. It's really not a small donation at that point. Most writers I know would sooner donate their teeth than give up rights to a creative work that's close to them, even if it's eventual publication is a longshot -- artists are strange like that.

Obviously, it's Robert Elliot's call if he doesn't want to donate time to a student who won't donate his storyboards to the public domain. I suspect that if I were his student and I were really attatched to the idea of hanging onto that particular work, I'd be asking right now if I couldn't donate something else to the GFDL in lieu of that particular project. As donations go, labor is cheap and money is replaceable. Donations of art are harder. Bailey 00:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Robert Elliot, do you think this discussion and the one above could be combined? What if he put his work up on youtube and then we linked it his work? As for art, there are many free hosting sites for that, and we could link to those as well.--Rayc 02:03, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation has a limited mission. A short version of the mission says, "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." I'm not sure this mission would be advanced by trying to change existing Wikimedia Foundation wiki websites into hosts for content that is not under a copyleft license. People who want to avoid copyleft can keep their non-copyleft materials on other websites.....just a click away. --JWSchmidt 02:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Robert -- I'd challenge the student a bit. Does he really only have _one_ good idea? Film makers are supposed to be artists, but no artist I know of only produces one work. It takes time and refinement to produce the Mona Lisa ... you don't produce it on your first session at the easel.

If his idea is really the next Matrix or whatever, tell him to think of another idea for the class. FWIW, I don't believe any of the works handed in at a real institution are considered fundamentally protected (ie .. a good project/code solution in Comp Sci is sometimes shown to other students as an example). Historybuff 03:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

In general - and this is only as far as I know - the content you add to any GFDL-licenced site is still "yours" (ie you are recognised as the author of the work you add), but that you give other people the right to use/redistribute that work under the term of the GFDL licence (or whatever other licence specified by you or the individual site). This might not make any difference to Bailey's student - but might it for Robert's? I think this conversation has already raised some significant points - is this better discussed/developed at Free content perhaps? Please suggest/create a better location if not. Cormaggio ^beep 11:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

OpenCourseWare University Collaboration

[1]89.240.141.50 17:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a webapge detailing all the different open material websites, from MIT to openU. Really think we should fix the legal stuff that keeps us from importing from these sites.--Rayc 18:11, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

"fix the legal stuff" <-- I do not see how Wikiversity can realistically hope to ever import material from the OpenCourseWare websites. It is, however, very simple to provide links to these websites from Wikiversity pages. The main problem is that the OpenCourseWare sites are under a "non-commercial use" restriction. This non-commercial use restriction by the OpenCourseWare Collaboration group conflicts with the established practices of the Wikimedia Foundation. WMF projects use copyleft licenses that allow commercial use of project contents. The "legal stuff" that keeps us from importing from these sites is under the control of the people who license their learning resources under a "non-commercial use" restriction. We could start a campaign aimed at asking universities to release learning resources under more open licenses, but I doubt if they will do so. --JWSchmidt 18:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I think our best campaign is simply to keep improving our copyleft delivery. It will start to put pressure on universities to deliver back to the communities from whence they are financed. Perhaps MIT is mostly financed by commercial licensing and tuition. Public universities in the U.S. are mostly financed by broad based taxation of society at large. Mirwin 21:03, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Licencing has long been (and still remains) very confusing to me - but one thing I've learned is that "non-commercial" licences (eg CC-BY-NC) do not simply conflict with the "practices" of the Wikimedia Foundation - they are incompatible with the GFDL (which says that: "You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that [..] you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License.") Adding a proviso that content cannot be reproduced commercially would be adding further conditions. However, taking into consideration the above discussion about whether we want to allow some flexibility in licencing, might it be time that we thought about the whole range of uses of work within Wikiversity, and what exactly our philosophy (educational or otherwise) is behind this licencing? Cormaggio ^beep 23:54, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there seems to be many issues with copyright stuff going on lately. I believe that it would be easier to change wikiversity's licensing that to get other people release their material on a GDFL license. I hope I'm wrong, and in the future we have the power to have people to do that. However, if we insist that it has to be able to be used commercially, maybe we can use that in some manner. Right now both the open course-ware and us aren't being used commercially, yet they have more material and better experts. We need to explain why, given a choice, would someone wish to contribute material to us over them?--Rayc 01:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

"change wikiversity's licensing" <-- If Wikiversity adopted a license that does not allow commercial use, I think that would mean terminating the project and starting a new project outside of the Wikimedia Foundation. An alternative is to let Wikiversity continue to build upon the existing content of the Wikimedia Foundation sister projects and also start a new education-oriented wiki that would use a non-commercial license. --JWSchmidt 02:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Because not everyone works for MIT or wishes to donate to their future commercial success through relicensing arrangements or restricting freedom of human knowledge? The mission statementWikiversity:Approved_Wikiversity_project_proposal of Wikiversity is quite clear that it is about "free" content and that is what people have been donating money for when they send it to the Wikimedia Foundation; assuming they have reviewed the Foundation's charterFoundation:Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws#ARTICLE_II_-_STATEMENT_OF_PURPOSE or request for donationsFoundation:Home. It is important that when trying to accelerate the development of Wikiversity we do not lose our way. There is plenty of human knowledge available that can be relicensed for profitable republishing. The Wikipedia community grew around the purpose of putting that knowledge back into free circulation for everyone's benefit, not just the broker's who have accumulated vast arrays of publishing rights restricted until the price is right. The Wikiversity project was proposed to extend the success of the wikimedia format in accumulating and freeing human knowledge beyond that of an encyclopedia or dictionary. Collaboration with OpenCourseWare which restricts the freedom of our accumulation of human knowledge would completely obliterate the entire purpose of Wikiversity, which is not to compete with commercial university's, rather it is to accumulate and free human knowledge from the publishing industry which currently restricts access for profit and just incidentally slows/taxes human education and progress worldwide. Mirwin 02:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll point this out -- we CAN use OpenCourseware as the basis for courses. Yes, yes, yes. And commercial books. Even powerpoint slides and word documents. It's just that these materials can't be _hosted_ here. So, if an opencourseware module inspires you, write a lesson (or exercises, etc) for it. A little bit of creative thinking can help. WV can be glue, can be learning resource, or just meeting place for scribbling and collab. As long as it advances knowledge in some way -- we don't have to have everything GFDL and hosted on the WV site. Historybuff 03:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

What we cannot do is burn a self contained set of useful offline media if all of Wikiversity's materials are interlaced with off site conflicting licensed material. So before Wikiversity makes its way into off internet schools there will be some large projects tracking down and substituting materials. I can certainly live with that but I do not see it as an advantage. Therefore my preference is to point at other Wikimedia materials first, other GFDL or public domain materials if possible, and MIT's opencourseware only if necessary. Others will no doubt have other preferences. Solivy. Mirwin 05:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see WV's goal as being "able to be burnt to a disc", like WP is evolving towards. That said, I do think having a completely self contained GFDL compatible set of learning materials should be a strategic goal. However, short term, we should persue any and all materials which make this site useful. If we provide a useful resource, we can hopefully get the eyeballs that will turn into the fingers writing the new GFDL content pieces we need. Until then, bring on what we need, damn the restrictions -- just don't upload it to the site. :) Historybuff 05:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Aye Captain, course laid in. Going to warp speed now. 8) Mirwin 12:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

About MIT OpenCourseWare. The big problem is that faculty just do not realize the tremendous problems that the non-commercial tag causes, and there is a need for an education effort. I have some institutional connections with MIT, and one of the big things I plan to do over the next few years is to lobby individual faculty to convince them to remove the NC tag from their courseware.

I've started a page Wikiversity:Non-Commercial Tag Issues

Roadrunner 00:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

OpenID Sign-in

I was wondering, are there any plans to implement OpenID sign-in, like Wikitravel did (http://wikitravel.org/en/Special:OpenIDLogin), so that way users don't have to create another account? TheJF 18:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

See m:Help:Unified login. --JWSchmidt 19:45, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

One of these days the devs might finally go live with that ... They've only been talking about it for 5 years :). AmiDaniel (talk) 00:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

At least it's not completely vapourware. :) Historybuff 03:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Are personal attacks permitted here?

On 16 Januray, Guillom edited MediaWiki:Monobook.css with a summary that seemingly implied sock puppetry on my part [2]. The following day, I inquired about this on Guillom's talk page and requested that he/she address the concerns that I expressed in good faith at MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css [3]. I received no response, so I posted a follow-up message on 29 January [4]. Again, I received no response, so I posted another follow-up message today [5]. Finally, Guillom replied by informing me that he/she decided to ignore me because [personal attack] [6]. Is this considered appropriate by the Wikiversity community's standards? I certainly hope not.

See User talk:Guillom#Your edit to MediaWiki:Monobook.css MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css#Your edit to MediaWiki:Monobook.css for the full thread (including my Guillom's new reply). —David Levy 17:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

David, I honestly don't think that Guillom was implying sock-puppetry on your part in the first diff you link to above - rather, I think that he was implying that it was only you who was complaining about rounded corners (whether or not this is actually the case). As to your subsequent interactions, I don't think it's really appropriate to comment at the moment - I'd much prefer the two of you (and other interested parties) to be able to conduct a civil discussion - personal attacks are never going to be good for Wikiversity. Cormaggio ^beep 20:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the link. (I looked for Wikiversity:No personal attacks and found nothing.) Obviously, personal attacks and other forms of incivility are prohibited here (not that I needed to see this in writing to know that it was the correct way to behave). I've been attempting to conduct a civil discussion, and Guillom reacted first by ignoring me, second by hurling insults, and third by moving the thread from his talk page ("where it doesn't belong") to MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css (while also adding the statement "Your POINT is really boring." [7]). I've made a good-faith effort to resolve this disagreement amicably, and I've received nothing but hostility in return.

I wasn't certain that Guillom was accusing me of sock puppetry (which is why I phrased this in the form of a question and later referred to it as an "apparent allegation of sock puppetry"), but he's made no effort to correct this interpretation. (If I'd misunderstood, wouldn't he tell me that?) His comments that I "have much time to loose arguing about details and acting like a capricious child" and that my "POINT is really boring" seem to convey that my concerns are existent but seem trifling to him. —David Levy 21:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Getting closer on a server

We've taken a few giant steps forward on having a viable server for various projects. Please visit Wikiversity:Sandbox_Server, and in paticular, the Hardware_specs section. Thanks. Historybuff 14:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Request: explain all jargon. For example, what is "KVM"? --JWSchmidt 15:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Point taken. KVM == Keyboard/Video/Mouse, I'll head over and update that on the page. Historybuff

Article Statistics

It will be very nice to have feedback in the form of article statistics, page hits per day will be probably enough. IMHO it is very important for the authors (not to have feeling "writing to black hole"). Can it be done? Or even it is already available and I just haven't found it? Vrecion 16:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

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Some sources of site use info:

• most viewed pages
• Special Statistics
• English Wikimedia stats
• All Wikiversity stats
• Alexa traffic rank
  --JWSchmidt 16:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

---

Thank you for hints. IMHO it will be nice to extend stats.wikimedia.org and allow users to get statistics for particular page. HTML form with text input (for typing wiki page name) and OK button will be sufficient for the purpose. If there are data for page hits in the database, it should not be too complex. Vrecion 10:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I thought it would be handy to have these links in one place, so I created Wikiversity:Statistics. --mikeu 22:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Cool! Are these easily accessible on front page? FAQ might be a good place to link in. Why is Wikiversity so underdeveloped and growing so slow? -->Huge projects start slow and grow exponentially as good ideas and early investments start to attract participants who receive solid benefits .... blah blah blah. Wikipedia had some differential equations and graphs modeling their growth after a few years. Perhaps we should do same to encourage new participants that we are on track for success. Mirwin 10:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Link could go under Research Heading but the main page is beyond my meager editing skill. Content seems to be hidden off somewhere in template files or something. Mirwin 10:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Well but it is still useles for the sites which has no high traffic.--Juan 15:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Copying Wikipedia content and other pedagogical issues

It seems that copying Wikipedia content (which I am quite guilty of) could create multiple problems. It may create an additional load on the Wikimedia servers; finances are a potential issue for the Wikimedia foundation. Having a greater server load exasturbates this financial issue.

I am also concerned, that I cannot think of a better way to convey information to Wikiversity participants. It seems that if content is not copied to Wikiversity then if one is simply directed to... go read this Wikipedia article... that by having the reader navigate off the site that it disrupts the momentum of the learning. Same is true if they are directed to... go read this wikibook.

Also, Wikiversity has adopted a "learn by doing" pedagogical model (if I am not mistaken). I do not understand what this includes. Reading Wikipedia content is "doing" something, so is rote memorization. Maybe you get a sense of the message and uncertainty I am trying to convey?

Perhaps there is not much to discuss related to these matters, however, they are concerns that I have had, and I think it would be useful to bring them up at this point in time in case anyone does have thoughts or suggestions related to them. --Remi 04:00, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with using some Wikipedia content at Wikiversity. If you do, mention it in your edit summary and make a link back to the source. However, If you find yourself creating whole encyclopedia articles or book modules at Wikiversity, you should expect to have an encounter with Template:Welcome and advise. Reading is a form of "doing" but the slogan "learn by doing" is a challenge to provide activities that go beyond just reading. In a wiki, the obvious thing to do is click the "edit" button and participate in the process of collaborative webpage editing. Creating encyclopedia articles at Wikipedia and book modules at Wikibooks are both good ways to learn. There is nothing wrong with Wikiversity hosting content development projects that improve Wikipedia articles and Wikibooks textbooks, but there are other types of content development projects that produce content that only fits here at Wikiversity, not at any other Wikimedia Foundation wiki project. You can look through Category:Learning activities, Category:Learning projects and Category:Research for some ideas. --JWSchmidt 04:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

An extreme example of learning by doing. http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity_Distributed_Virtual_Supercomputer This project is intended to get us ready to support our local scientists, engineers, scholars, etc with parallel processing. I made contact with a guy working on attaching biomolecules to integrated chip surfaces. He seemed to think that a Wikiversity Grid would be a good thing once we have some computer science types and software engineers interested in coding for the calculuations. Rayc's big boom code might also mutate into something to justify our supercomputers existence. The screensavers can help people learn about stuff of interest going on in science as well as making great night lights and low level electric heaters. Starting hypnosis now .... go to the link provided ... pick a distributed processing project to support there are many of vast potential benefit to yourself and others .... create or join a Wikiversity team for advertising .... wait for the future to arrive.... I estimate a few years and then we will have a Wikiversity grid of some kind operating to support each others activities. Mirwin 05:05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I have not got this draft proprosal ( http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Self_Paced_Reading_and_Grammer_Labs ) ready for primetime but you can get the idea if you struggle through to the bottom. Notice that we wish to use other online text as our reading source and we can use history versions of Wikipedia and Wikibooks so we control the content the student arrives at when they go to the Wikimedia based sites. We create a short lesson plan and quiz and an interlocking systems of linked lists or indexes for individual reading lessons of various levels say K3-K14 and allow the students to work through categories of materials interesting to themselves. Clearly this is a huge project but it breaks out nicely into small tasks and edits. If we get some high school or gradeschool teachers and/or classes interested in helpful us develop the materials and system, then they and we are learning by doing. Hope these two blurbs helped reduce the confusion. Mirwin 05:14, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

final round of motto and slogan contests : promote?

Should we promote the final rounds (probably) of the motto and slogan contests and the logo contest on Wikipedia/Wikimedia/WV-beta?

Please list your choice here: motto and slogan contests.

Thanks, --Reswik 15:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

A bit belated this - but I think advertising on any other project than Wikiversity would be pretty pointless at this stage - we'd be starting from scratch. But yes, why haven't we advertised on Beta? In any case, I've re-added it to the sitenotice here. Cormaggio ^beep 12:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning the contests on Beta. This seems to have drawn some participation today.

I don't think that promoting would mean starting from scratch. We could ask people to help with the last round. On the other hand, I have refrained from promotion personally as I did not feel comfortable doing that but also, I assumed it was better for people drawn to Wikiversity or involved in WV somehow to participate in this process. It is true that a contest is a way to invite participation. But, I think it is key that people with some sort of involvement will think in more reflective way about the mission of this project, which is quite distinct from other wikimedia projects. So, while participation has been unfolding very slow in this round of the contest (until today), I won't promote unless others suggest we do so. --Reswik 04:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Communication

Whats been done towards bettering communication within projects? Talk pages arent really working.--Elatanatari 22:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

"communication within projects" <-- can you be more specific about which projects? I followed your edit history to Talk:Learning the Basics of French and I am puzzled by the contents of that page. --JWSchmidt 01:13, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Im puzzeled too, but no one else was contributing.--Elatanatari 23:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that there is much that needs to be discussed at Talk:Learning the Basics of French, but it might help to remove the section called "Version 1 (See version 2 below)" to an archive page. I cannot get the first ogg file to play on the Learning the Basics of French/Lesson:Introducing Yourself/1 page. All I get out of it is a strange churp. The second file is fine. If the first ogg file is defective, that might inhibit people from using the lesson. I've never seen this before, but at File:French Vocabulary - BogusGreetings.ogg it says "Warning: This file may contain malicious code, by executing it your system may be compromised.". --JWSchmidt 00:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

That file is bogus, see my comment at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:Learning_the_basics_of_French/Introducing_Yourself . Since it seems likely to contain a virus, I'm removing all direct references to it so people don't innocently stumble into it. This includes your link above; remove the word "Bogus" from that if you laugh in the face of viral danger.  :-) I guess I'll enter a deletion request too. --Yako 23:56, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean communication between the different language wikiveristies?--Rayc 01:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that talk pages aren't working -- they just aren't that well utilized, but that reflects the utilization of Wikiversity at present. We are working on some ways to foster communications already, but suggestions always help. Did you have something specific in mind? Historybuff 02:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and IM (instant messaging) on the #wikimedia wikiversity channel has vastly enriched and improved my participation level at Wikiverisity. Perhaps as participation grows various kinds of activities and busier pages will need their own channels .... I use channel as in PCM matrix .... time slots and/or channels to allow easier communication between focused groups of players? User:mirwin 11:18, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I cant get the IRC to work, any advice?Elatanatari 18:42, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

The best advice I have is to try the CGI-java version from here: Wikiversity:Chat#Web_based_Java_version. You have to type in your name (and pick Wikiversity-en from a long list), but it doesn't require a long install and a perplexing configuration. And it's pretty good, as clients go. Hope to see you on soon! Historybuff 19:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks.Elatanatari 22:23, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe what I meant was that most custodians and some general population participants have been engaged in operations research[8] at #wikiversity to improve Wikiveristy learning activities. Increased efforts on infrastructure will probably natrually emerge as greater participation brings greater expertise and effort available to bear on developing Wikiversity. 71.161.8.137 11:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

---

The two problems of Talk Pages:

There are currently two problems with talk pages:

Problem #1

First, people who are new to Wikiversity (or Wikipedia, etc.) do not understand what User pages and Talk pages are. Part of this problem is the titles are not clear. I have found that over 90% of all the students that work on my lessons cannot figure this out.

• "About me" would be clearer for "User" page.

• "Messages to me" would be clearer for "my talk".

The original names were selected by the computer programmers. The original names are kept because of tradition rather than usefulness. The names can be easily changed but the people who are able to make this change prefer to keep everything sounding very scientific rather than clear and useful.

Problem #2

The second problem is there is no one to listen.

I have begun looking at the special page of Wikiversity, namely the Recent changes page. From what I see, there are five kinds of people currently working on pages at Wikiversity

• Stub writers - When someone thinks of a subject, they create a stub for someone else to expand.

• Administration - These people continually add the technical details to all the Wikiversity pages such as "Categories" and "Portals".

• Lurkers - These people usually correct spelling and clear up confusing sentences but do not go beyond that.

• School and University Instructors - I have noticed that some professional instructors use the pages of Wikiversity for their own classes. Except for students in their class, few people can gain benefit of the pages because the pages are usually very condensed notes from lectures and class assignments (which are not included or explained at Wikiversity.) Once the class is finished, these pages are erased or abandoned. Hopefully, these pages will provide enough of a start that other people can turn their pages into information that all people will be able to access.

• Lesson Instructors/Lesson Facilitators - Since the expressed goal of Wikiversity is NOT to create traditional lessons by an instructor or facilitator, there are almost none. Searching page after page of Recent changes, you will not find any full time instructors... except me.

My Lessons:

I believe I am the only full-time person trying to create and maintain traditional "teacher/student" lessons. To do this, I have to write complete lessons, assignments and exams. Then students must do assignments and submit the results for analysis by me. After some correspondence with the students, I then suggest new directions (new lessons that I have written at Wikiversity) for the students to begin.

At my current rate, I will have 1/4 of the filmmaking course completed by the end of 2007. This covers Motion Picture Pre-Production. It will take another year or more to develop the lessons for Production.

For a "Project" such as the Storyboard Artwork Project, I also must become an evangelist at outside forums to try to attract people to participate. As an example, I must go to ArtRage's forum and write an article about the project and give specific examples of how people can help. Next I must repeat this at forums for Poser and for DAZ Studio and for each of the 3D figures (such as the cartoon human figures of Lady Littlefox.)

If I am successful in finding participants, I have to processed the final results of the project. When someone submits a complete assignment, I must convert the files to the proper format (unmasked pictures into cropped and masked PNG files) to upload to Wikiversity. With the project for the Storyboard Artwork Project, I also must prepare the files for use by kids at other educational projects.

That is a lot of work. So far, I am the only one who does this.

That is why you are not going to find people who are full time at any of the other projects to communicate with. There aren't any! (A few people will say that they are doing this. But look at their list of contributions and judge for yourself.) Robert Elliott

Just new here - but I think there are some real opportunities to use traditional learning plans as a jumping off point and then to combine them with something following on the lines of the International Baccalaureate Primary Years self-evalauation schemes - teaching students to evaluate themselves and their learning experience as collaborators in the process - thus ultimately removing the need for a formal teacher to do the evaluation --Vannin 04:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)vannin

---

I think there will be some general resistance to changing the names of the pages, just because "all the other WikiMedia Foundation projects use it". I don't think this is a good or valid reason, but there is some reasoning behind it. I wonder how difficult it would be to change but maintain a "compatibility mode".

As for full time workers, most Wiki's aren't built as a full time process. Information flows best (and real learning occurs) when someone is scratching an itch. I do see a role for people to use Wikiversity as a fulltime resource, but I would venture that the bulk of the project will be built up in spurts, as individual contributors add to lessons and learning projects. What I think we have to do is ensure that contributors get information either from or to the wiki in the simplest and easiest way possible. Historybuff 15:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Reply to Robert:

I think your headings for "why talk pages don't work" are pretty accurate, but my view of the content of these headings is somewhat different. Wikis are confusing to newcomers - of that there is no doubt - and there is a learning curve to figuring out the basics like: how it works, where to find relevant content/discussions, how to edit; to other things like: who participates, how to influence policies, community etiquette, etc. We still have a good way to go to making this wiki environment welcoming, understandable, motivating etc., and it would be great if people could bring up ideas for what is working and what could work better (perhaps at a project like Developing Wikiversity through action research, or simply by using your judgment, and being bold). However, I don't like the inference that the people who can make these changes (ie namespace changes, ie custodians) prefer to keep things the same by tradition - everything on a wiki should be (and is) up for discussion, so let's have that discussion, instead of inferring that there's no means for change. My own personal take on changing the "user" namespaces is that we should have much clearer means of explaining how this current system works - which we would have to do with any system. I also think (though I don't know) that it would be difficult to implement the changes you propose, as the "talk" needs to be linked with it's own namespace (ie "User_talk" with "User", just as "Project_talk" with "Project", and "School_talk" with "School").

The second point - that "there's no one there" is true in some (maybe many) cases, and will continue to be until there is a sufficient number of people interested in each particular project - I suspect this is where Elatanatari's frustration comes from. I think I detect some frustration in your own post here, and I understand that to a great extent. The way I hypothesise it, Wikiversity still needs to take off - and many people simply don't know what to do once they are here. I have seen people express this, and I sometimes feel the same myself. I hope this is not down to the perception that Wikiversity is not for developing traditional materials, which I still maintain is not true. Wikiversity is open to traditional as well as experimental models of developing learning materials and activities - our model still needs to be developed as we find what works and what doesn't (see also Wikiversity:Learning).

Different people are here for different reasons, and while that breakdown is fair enough, I don't think it's comprehensive, and I think that many people play a blend of multiple roles (I don't really fit into one category above, and there are others, not there, that I would identify with). I also take a wider view of what constitutes work on Wikiversity - for example, much of what I consider to be my "work" is in socially constructing a picture of Wikiversity, some of it in my own head (for now), and much of it sparked on IRC. I suspect that there are many people waiting to put their energy into a project that fits their interests and needs, but who need some sort of basis (reason/method) for doing that work. Your own project is admirable - a lesson/model for us all - and so it's up to individuals and groups within the community to form some sort of picture of what would constitute useful materials/activities - which you are doing yourself. I want to do more myself, but I do believe (from what I see) that this collaborative, discursive, wiki model is working - even if the space continually needs improving. Cormaggio ^beep 15:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Correction

Sorry for not being clear about the names of the tabs at the top of the page. I did not mean that the namespace should be changed. I simply meant that the tab names should be changed to more meaningful names. This names are in a tiny data file and have nothing to do with the namespace names.

As an example, when you go to your USER page, the tabs say "user page", "discussion", "edit", "history", etc. You can try changing "user page" to "About me" and "discussion" to "Messages to me". That will help people understand the purpose of the pages. Robert Elliott 17:22, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea of trying some different names for the main buttons in the Wikiversity interface. For example, Wikipedia uses "edit this page" as a more informative alternative to "edit". I remember that I personally made many visits to Wikipedia before I figured out what the "edit" button was for. Over the past six years Wikipedia has experimented with many ways to help visitors become editors. The Wikiversity community needs more effort in developing ways to encourage visitors to participate. We can make our own versions of the tools that are used at Wikipedia to help support new editors. We can also be leaders in developing new methods such as video tutorials. There are several "General Community Projects" that aim to help make the entire Wikiversity website more understandable, easier to use and more welcoming to new visitors. The Wikiversity main page could be re-designed to be more devoted to helping new visitors learn how to edit and participate in the project. We can also start putting featured content on the main page as is common practice at wikis. Growth of Wikiversity depends on there being reasons for volunteer editors to want to participate in collaborative webpage editing. It is a fundamental reality of the wiki universe that many people who are wiki editors are Wikipedians. One way to grow Wikiversity is to make Wikiversity relevant to Wikipedians so that they will naturally spend some of their time editing at Wikiversity, too. --JWSchmidt 17:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I changed the Wikiversity "edit" button to "edit this page". --JWSchmidt 21:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks like "user" was changed to "my user page". Shoud it be "my decription"? Also what should the "Discussion" tab be called? "my talk"?--Rayc 00:16, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

As a general comment: close to every word on the user interface of this Wiki can be changed by us (us=Wikiversity community). If we want something else than an "edit" tab, we can rename it. We can also change the wording of the "save page" button, what our main page is called, the words in the toolbox to the left, the words in the preferences dialog, etc. So, if there's something you think would work better if named differently, just bring it up here and we can try it out. sebmol ^? 07:46, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

So, the "user page" tab now displays as "about me" (thanks to Sebmol - after I experimented with "my user page"), but it seems the second tab is set to "discussion" - across all namespaces. Unless someone can work out a way of linking the discussion tab with individual namespaces (which is what "user" is), this seems to be pretty much what we're stuck with. In the meantime, is there a generic word that's better than "discussion" that would be applicable generally? Cormaggio ^beep 14:33, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

When I go to my user page the tab says "about me" but when I go to someone elses user page it also says "about me". Is that really less confusing? Changing "edit" to "edit this page" is an improvement.--mikeu 17:48, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

We can also do it with "about {{PAGENAME}}", but that can be a problem for subpages. --JWSchmidt 18:15, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Students

As per the talk about there being no students... take a look at this page: Spanish/Students, as well as this page: Spanish/Registration (which is still don't know how they find). Is this a way we want to do things? Robert Elliott, do you have such a page in your film school? It would be cool if people could sign up and then we could go place a "course news" template on their user page. However, that assumes a teacher/student setup which I thought we were trying to get away from. --Rayc 00:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I am a student in Java course, and a lead developer in educational game design for cisLunarFreighter where several people have showed up to do some preproduction and xtreme programming tasks. These games will eventually support the Lunar Boom Town learning trail which is about entrepreurlism and whereever it takes the paricipants. It is an attempt to attain learning without an instructor. Recently I am working at least halftime and sometimes up to sixty hours a week on these efforts but it takes time for results to start to accumulate and become visible. It is hard to commit to advertising Wikiversity to people when it is current a "Beta" project. I will be happy when the initial cut of research guidelines is approved reviewed by the special projects committee so the Board can officially commit the Wikimedia Foundation to support Wikiversity for the forseeable future. Then I can advertise Wikiversity to "normal" people who only want to browse for a few hours a week or who are interested in space entrepreurialism for the future. Mirwin 10:35, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

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Reply by Robert:

Filmmaking Course -- List of "Completed Assignments".

For the first lesson in the Filmmaking course, students are asked to download trial software, read a story, and type a script. Students who have successfully completed the assignment are listed on a page for completed assignments. --- Robert Elliott 01:00, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

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Here we go, I could spam this on everyone that signed up, then it would only require one edit instead of 30, what do you think?

--Rayc 00:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

---

@Rayc: "However, that assumes a teacher/student setup which I thought we were trying to get away from." - IIRC, Wikis haven't been used very vigorously in educational settings yet. One of the main issues that I read out of the discussions surrounding Wikiversity's inception were related to the fact that people had difficulty envisioning how learning could work on a wiki. Now, I'm not a very theoretical person so I rather have people try out different ideas and see which ones work. So, if a more unstructured setting of strict peer learners is the way somebody wants to go, we should let them and encourage them as they try that route. If a more structured teacher/student approach is used, we should do the same. Which of these methods work most effectively we won't really know until we've tried it. sebmol ^? 07:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, nod to Sebmol. Having a teacher/student setup is one way of setting up a course/learning community - though there others (that's a nod now to Rayc :-)) Cormaggio ^beep 14:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

This has been a topic of discussion a number of times. I think that familiarity isn't a bad thing, especially while Wikiversity is still in the formative stages. But we shouldn't forget to be bold, and experiment. Not all change has to be revolutionary -- some can be evolutionary too. Historybuff 17 February 2007

This thread has excellent insight. I hope we continue experimenting with a variety of methods because not all people learn the same way or enjoy the same lifestyle. We hope to provide value to all actual self starters who show up and begin browsing and communicating with others locally. Mirwin 10:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, then, just wanted to see what everyone though. I'll start spamming.--Rayc 02:12, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Should not Wikiversity also use the URL: http://en.wikiversity.edu/ ?

Use of [9] by Wikiversity would protect the franchise of Wikiversity and make it easier to find. Who decides such questions and who would claim this URL for Wikiversity? Dionysios | DYYYY2007 | DMMDD0216 | THHMMSS221000 | UTC |

According to EDUCAUSE, the .edu domain name "is limited to postsecondary institutions that are institutionally accredited". --JWSchmidt 23:18, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Cool! When Wikiversity is ready the URL will be there for us to use perhaps for formal course catalogs indexing into all the other activity zones and the assoicated registration and tracking necessary for evaluation for awarding recognition of accomplishment. Others who prefer to avoid that can simply continue using Wikiversity.org as we have been. No major impact on current operations of going accredited! Nice. Mirwin 10:43, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I think what John was saying was that to get an edu domain name, you must be "institutionally accredited" [10]. Wikiversity can't do that since it is not an accredited institution. But yeah, if Wikiversity ever gains accreditation, it could apply for and use that domain. Cormaggio ^beep 12:55, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Do we need faculties and departments?

Wikiverity is meant to be a place for free learning. On entering it, however, I notice that there is a system of predefined faculties. I want to explain why I believe this should not be so.

First of all, we are dealing with a hypertext medium here and we should use it's potentiial! There is absolutely no need to put any bit of knowledge or activities into just one place in a hierarchy. Instead I propose to give up the concept of faculty and just provide the possibility to put things into many different and possibly overlapping categories.

The system of classification of research topics would grow out of the work of the users here bey itself. It might include the categories of the traditional classification, but it might contain different ways to group subjects and might look quite different from the traditional system that is imposed on us here. Why should a predefined system of classification be imposed on us.

Already, I find there is a category "Other portals", indicating that there are some people unhappy with the traditional groupings into faculties. Secondly I see a category "Interdisciplinary Research". A topic, however, is interdisciplinary only with respect to a given, predefined system of disciplines. But that is a problem not of the "interdisciplinary" topic but a problem of the system of disciplines imposed on it. The existence of such a category shows that something is wrong with the system of classification. Therefore I suggest to dissolve the faculties and even the departments and replace them by a flexible system of categories that can overlap and be redefined all the time. In some areas the traditional classification might emerge as a result, but I suspect this will not be the case in other areas, especially in those regarding human culture and society.

The clasification given here is cultures pecific (if you look into the German wikiversity, you will find some other groupings there both on faculty level and on deparment level). The given classification is in some instances also highly eurocentric (and in some cases anglocentric)! We should not just take the traditional eurocentric library classification systems and impose them here. Let us have freedom here.

In physical universities, there is a need to group topics into a hierarchical organisation. There are buildings and employees and you have to put things into one place. In a hypertext medium there is no need for that, so why introduce such restrictions? Likewise, in physical libraries, every book has to be in one place on one bookshelf. In a hypertext medium, it can be in many places at the same time.

I suppose that Wikiversity should not leave the beta stage before these things have been fixed.

Wikiversity can be viewed as a growing data structure. Methods of data structure design could be employed to find structures for it that do not just unneccessarily copy the traditional (and eurocentric) structure of physical universities but that realy support free research. The design of theses structures is not clear yet and there is need for discussion. However, my opinion is that while the data- and object model of Wikiversity should contain a class "category", it should not contain a priviliged class "faculty" or "department". On the starting page there should not be a list of faculties but a list of categories. Instead of forcing people to put their research activities into a predefined system that has grown otu ot the traditions of one particlular culture, the classification systems should grow out of the research work in a bottom up way. Nannus 14:34, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikiversity participants are free to create novel categorizations. Most Wikiversity participants are familiar with a hierarchical system for categorizing academic topics, so the community produced the current system. I agree that use of the term "faculty" should not be encouraged at Wikiversity. The term "portal" is now well established within Wikimedia Foundation wiki projects and internet websites in general. I think the term "faculty" should be removed from all WIkiversity portal pages. Within the collaborative content development projects at Wikiversity, the term "department" is just one of many terms that can be used along with other terms such as "institute" and "center", or just "content development project". At Wikipedia they are called "wikiprojects". "Department" is the term that most people are familiar with so it tends to be used most frequently. So feel free to make new categories and projects. Make "The world according to Nannus" if you feel the need to escape from all existing conventions. --JWSchmidt 14:55, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

These are good observations. Firstly, you're quite right that materials will fall within various overlapping themes/categories - and that materials can and should be hyperlinked as appropriate. You're also quite right that the category system is our fundamental metadata system (for now). The main benefit, to my mind, in having such things as "Schools", "Topics" and "Portals" is to have a more user-friendly page for people to look through (and an easier one to browse to) than having one large category of everything related to, say, "biology". As small as we are, this would already be confusing enough, but can you imagine what this would be like when Wikiversity has, say, 50,000 pages of content? We need some sort of system for organising materials - in fact, I was talking at length to someone last night who hasn't contributed so far because Wikiversity is, to this person, "badly organised". You might have read Wikiversity:Namespaces and Wikiversity:Naming conventions - though, if you haven't, they might give some clarity. But this isn't to say that we can't improve on what we have. Addressing Anglo-, Euro-, or US-centricism would be a good step - could you help us understand how you feel this is so? On the main point, though, I'll reaffirm that there is no restriction on how materials and courses are hyperlinked to eachother, and also that I feel that we need organising systems working in tandem, rather than one system of just categories. Cormaggio ^beep 15:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as having the project organized goes, I don't have any problem doing away with "Faculties" and whatnot myself. But, I do think it helps people who are coming from outside orient themselves. Academics familiar with the current post-secondary system (in North America at least) will feel more at ease with the current naming approach.

I do think Wikiversity is still a confusing place, so giving people familiar reference points is important. Wiki technology is new and unfamiliar to a lot of people; add in that we're trying to foster new approaches to learning, and it can quickly become very daunting. We have to try, at least while we're experimenting, to try and stay connected in some way to people who think in a more traditional way. Historybuff 04:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer to see the use of faculty phased out in favor of dept. or portal. It seems a more locale neutral choice than faculties which has different conotations in North American usage.--mikeu 17:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Course categorization

I've earlier proposed to implement learning trails meta:Talk:Wikiversity/Archive_3#Learning_trail. The idea would be to implement a course categorization that allowed to write courses that had easily recognizable similar goals. As an example, "Stochastic I" for physicists might differ from "Stochastic I" for biologists in the selection of examples but both could extend a common "Stochastic I" course for mathematicians. With a growing number of authors I might also want to pick between different courses with exact same goals but different didactic approaches or authoring groups. A search engine for course material should be able to categorize by course prerequisites and course goals. Both course prerequisites and course goals could be defined by means of categories but that wouldn't allow to distinguish course prerequisites and course goals. More sensible would probably be a template for course description pages that could assign categories to properties of a course (example properties would be prerequisite, goal, didactic approach, authoring group - an authoring group could, for example, define its own standards for course material) --Fasten 13:56, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

A property completion could distinguish courses under construction or maintenance from courses available for students. --Fasten 14:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Different approaches to re-use course material in derived courses

Cut & paste

That is probably the most direct and most inflexible approach. Course material would be duplicated.

Re-use of sub-pages

A derived course could include common sub-pages from the main course. This would require prior planning and, possibly, close cooperation between the authors of the main course and all derived courses.

Re-use of pages

A main course could have re-usable content pages and include these into pages which would just add headers and navigation. The content pages could be re-used by other courses.

Inheritance

A main course could implement a complex structure for page components and include all content from sub-pages (or otherwise exchangeable containers). A derived course would only have to copy the structure information from the course pages and could exchange content as desired. (See also: Bug #9242)

Creating a category Page

How does one create a category page?--Remi 19:26, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

See if Help:Category is useful. The basic trick is to add [[Category:Somecategoryname]] to a page. --JWSchmidt 20:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Innovative Course Ideas

In an effort to vitalize the content of Wikiversity and have it regarded as a unique approach to learning, innovation is a requisite. Building a course that combines aspects of theoretical history, anthropology, computer science, philosophy, and biotechnology is a daunting task, but I believe that the answer to the world's broadest questions concerning future global sustainability can be accessed via such an innovative angle. If enough scholars are cultivated in this line of thinking, something beneficial may result. Please offer me your feedback and ideas. User:Domani 20 Feb 2007

archiving colloquium

This page is getting rather long again. Could someone archive the Jan. comments? Also, can we use a bot do this automatically? See w:User:Werdnabot/Archiver/Howto for an example.--mikeu 15:26, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

If you know of a good bot, ask its owner to bring it to Wikiversity:Bots. --JWSchmidt 01:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, did that here: w:User_talk:Werdna#werdnabot_at_wikiversity --mikeu 16:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Progression Marking

I have notice several schools that have little to no contnet on them, I think it would be nice if the links to the schools, and also links to the depaartments, topics, ect had progression markers. Below is an example of progreassion bars I made in paint with three diffrent color schemes and outlines the progress, just to show an example of what i am thinking of. Anybody else think this would be useful to add?

--RyanB88 17:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

This has been discussed repeatedly during the past 6 months, but nobody has taken the time to do it. I suggest you go ahead and get started. Are you familiar with the system that was used at Wikibooks? --JWSchmidt 19:18, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Not particularly, though I have just finished looking at the wikibooks development stages.--RyanB88 20:44, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Probably a good idea. I vote that you use the first or third colour schemes, out of those presented. Or, you could have a public vote (probably a good idea). The Jade Knight 02:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I like the second color scheme. Robert Elliott 09:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I like the first or second, of this selection. Does anyone know how these colors look to the colorblind? It would be helpful if there was some distinction.

You can use [Colorblind Web Page Filter] to check what the image looks like for various types of colorblindness.--Balloonguy 22:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I noticed at wikibooks they also use four small squares. I'm not sure if that was part of the consideration, but a clear visual indicator of progress would be nice. Historybuff 17:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What does each level of progress mean? Page empty/Some material/Beta testing/Has students...?--Rayc 06:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Seeing that Wikiversity is used for "collabrative learning", I think we should impliment progress indicators for more static modules, and activity indicators for actual schools, departments, learning and research projects, sort of like Soureforge and Freshmeat ativity percenages. Also, Wikibooks has some other graphics besides that subdivided square that actually had like 10 little tiny squares all lined up... it was very nice looking and may suit our purposes better. I will see if I can't find that... --Remi 09:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, if I see they are no students on the department of pomology I slowed down, creating new lessons. So the progress would be low. This is just a note.--Juan 19:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia virtual classroom

Virtual classroom on advanced Wikipedia skills: "This page hosts presentations, focussed discussions, question and answer sessions, and other classroom assignments covering the various activities of developing and maintaining Wikipedia." This page was very active until recently, and the format seemed to work well for what they were doing.--mikeu 03:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for this. When I looked, the format seemed slightly confusing - with the page being too long to be really useful for beginners. However, there are some great ideas there - would anyone like to either set up something similar here, or invite the author to do so? Cormaggio ^beep 18:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Here are a few of my thoughts... It is interesting to see how a "virtual classroom" experiment went on a site with far more users than wv. The page was very active for some two months (indicating that it met a need in the community??) But, it has not been updated since early Jan. Is this because the page became long and disorganized, or because the person who started and structured it moved on to other tasks? The page (as it exists now) has left a record of some interesting discussions. But, it would be far more usable if it was cleaned up, perhaps with summary info on the main page and details in subpages, or some such work.--mikeu 20:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikiversity, Wikieducator, and others..

Hi, I should mention that I've been talking a bit with people from the Wikieducator project recently - and that I think there is significant merit in working together in some capacity. (Wikieducator have some pretty nifty templates and widgets that it would be useful to have a look at.) After some discussion on this page and through email, we've decided (for now) to use a neutral ground - OER Grapevine, a wiki (and mailing list) devoted to Open Education Resources. I've set up a page there called "MediaWiki pedagogical templates" that could be of benefit to anyone using MediaWiki - ourselves included.

Wikiversity pages of relevance include:

• MediaWiki Project (and Topic:MediaWiki)
• Wikiversity:Templates
• LiquidThreads

Please help out if you're interested. Thanks. Cormaggio ^beep 17:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I think they have a lot of great ideas on that site; I'd be interested to see some of them go live here. Seems to have far less content than this wiki and a smaller userbase; however, they have a lot of technical doo-dads that I think would fit in quite well here. I'm going to suggest to the MW devs implementing their "Special:Pdf" on our wiki and others, and I'd also like to see an on-wiki IRC client here, much like they have. I'd be more than willing to implement a quick client as a JApplet, and I'd even be willing to host it on my server, if there are no objections and an admin would be willing to update MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Sidepanel to make the applet available to common users (of course not until after the applet's been finalized and seen by the community!). Wikiversity is an extremely collobaritive project, even on the behalf of the "lay user", and I think inviting them to live chat would make the experience all the more profitable. AmiDaniel (talk) 07:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - your offer of hosting a Java-based IRC client is very generous (btw, is that different from the one hosted by Wikizine?). And the PDF generator is something that there's been quite a bit of work on - Erik Moeller (who hosts Wikieducator) knows most about this I think.. Cormaggio ^beep 08:31, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was actually planning on implementing my own Java-based client that would be more Wikiversity-centric. The core goal, IMO, is to make it as simple as is feasibly possible for any average joe to use it without having any knowledge of IRC, etc. The advantage to implementing this in Java, as opposed to cgi (which wikizine uses), is that we could ultimately imbed these applets in a Wikiversity page (of course, this can currently only be done by admins, and I believe it best so). As such, users can simply go to Wikiversity:Chat (or whatever we decide as a name for it) and do not have to actually leave the site to participate in the chat. From there it would be as simple as selecting a nickname, and the app will do the rest for them; they won't have to know even the most masic IRC commands like "/join". I find that what prevents many, for instance, Wikipedia users from really getting involved in the community is lack of knowledge of IRC, and, unfortunately, IRC is the primary medium used by Wikimedians for communication. Also, since the advent of Pircbot, creating a custom-tuned IRC client in Java is an absolute piece of cake. AmiDaniel (talk) 19:29, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

/me has cookies waiting for AmiDaniel... or beer, or bacon, or sauerkraut, or whatever tickles your fancy.. :-) Cormaggio ^beep 00:23, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Oooooh, Sauerkraut :D. I'm going back to Germnay next week (for the first time in over a year!), and I'm so excited to finally have some decent food again :P. AmiDaniel (talk) 22:01, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Here is an interesting article that is relevant: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198000568 Dmclean 12:10, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

And yet another thing I noticed today: iTunes now has lectures from a number of major universities available as podcasts. In the iTunes program in the "iTunes Store" box, click on Podcasts and then when the Categories box appears under it, click on Education. Dmclean 23:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Mark for Deletion?

During the course of my creating a series of user templates, I've made some pages accidently and they now sit blank. How would I go about to mark them for deletion? TheJF 01:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

You can add [[Template:Deletion request]] to the pages and list them at Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion. --JWSchmidt 02:22, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

individual and group roles in improving productivity.

pls search and send articles or features that bear the title: Individual and Group Roles in Improving Productivity. thanks. 26 February 2007 196.207.129.70

Proofreading

One of the things that I have learned about myself is that I am a lousy editor/proofreader in general and much worse when looking at stuff that I wrote. I was therefore quite excited to see a mechanism for requesting proofreading of pages.

Unfortunately, that mechanism doesn't seem to be working.

Is it because the community is so new that we just don't have enough editing talent? If so, how can we recruit or borrow some?

Fair or not, we will be judged on the quality of our content and I am certain that mine could use some help. Dmclean 17:23, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we are looking at sheer lack of numbers. Until the WV site evolves some interest sufficient to begin retaining casual visitors we will just have to live with not many participants in most areas. Mirwin 19:50, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Dmclean -- point me at the mechanism you are using. I've come across a few attempts, and I'm hoping we can evolve a central "standard" that all can use. Historybuff 03:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikiversity:Requests for proofreading Dmclean 04:03, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Spell Checking

I would be happy with just a spell checker and a "find and replace" command. Robert Elliott 27 February 2007 (PST)

Not using Firefox, eh? :-) Find and replace would be nice though. Dmclean 15:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the tip. I had tried Safari but it cannot FIND text in the editing box. Now I tried Firefox and it works. Great! (I was told today that I have been spelling "Chord" as "cord". This will help me find all the instances of "cord".) Robert Elliott 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I think this is not implemented because of the server overhead, but this is based on something I read a long, long time ago. --HappyCamper 16:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

If anyone's looking for a good regex find and replace, w:User:Bookofjude has a quite decent, albeit simplistic, one. Posted below:

addOnloadHook(function () {
	if(document.forms.editform) {
		addLink('p-cactions', 'javascript:replace()', 'replace', 'ca-replace', 'Regexp replace for the edit window', '', 'ca-history');
	}
	});

function replace() {
	var s = prompt("Search regexp?");
	if(s) {
		var r = prompt("Replace regexp?");
		if(!r && r != '') return;
		var txt = document.editform.wpTextbox1;
		txt.value = txt.value.replace(new RegExp(s, "g"), r);
	}
}

If anyone tries it and has difficulty getting it to work, let me know. -- AmiDaniel (talk) 07:21, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Discreet Departments

Casually browsing the site I've noticed a lack of cohesion among the "departments" and "majors." I understand the highly interdisciplinary nature of Wikiversity's undertaking, but it seems as if multiple users have created similar departments and topics under multiple subheadings (ex. organic chemistry). I'm just wondering how this problem will be dealt with, especially when content increases dramatically in volume. At the same time, I greatly value interdisciplinary efforts, since they will make Wikiversity a wholly unique experience.

This happens all the time in wikis. When duplications are found the pages can be merged. --JWSchmidt 01:33, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Help Request

hello guys! pls have an assignment on how to present a press release and perception of editors can you pls help out its a topic on public relations. you can send the answers/guidelines to answer it on my mail box. my mail box is mts_omolara. thanks larrry

It would be best to ask questions like this either in the specific department (I'd guess marketing or somewhere in the Business school), or at Help Desk. Historybuff 12:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Countee Cullen

--70.108.123.107 16:48, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

An interesting article with policy implications

I ran across this article browsing the village pump at Wikipedia. http://courseware.hbs.edu/public/cases/wikipedia/ It makes some interesting points about where the content of large wikis comes from and how policy is established. Basically, it concludes that all participants make valuable contribution while policy tend to be created and enforce by a smaller group of regulars or very frequent contributors. Cautions policymakers not to undervalue partime contributers. Mirwin 10:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for an extension : wikiquiz

I proposed the installation of an extension allowing to create quiz on wikiversity. You can deliver your opinion on this page: Talk:Test_and_Quiz

The above is a comment from Lrbabe out of the French wikipedia. According to meta, the devs are the only ones that can install the extentions, but they need the approval of the sysops on the wiki in question. I'm not sure what policy that falls under, but feel free to evaluate the example here--Rayc 19:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikiversity and Homeschooling

PlanetMath

I started a page Homeschooling and linked it to and from Portal:Education, Networked learning and such. I also added PlanetMath to suggest a possible collaboration with that project to follow suit with the one at w:PlanetMath at Wikipedia through the Math WikiProject. I think it would be great if Wikiversity build some handy resources for Homeschooling parents and children, because many of those .com sites out there are riddled with ads and sales ploys. Ideas like SchoolForge, Wikihigh and Teaching and Learning Online may be great for homeschoolers if developed further. Just a thought. CQ 20:53, 7 February 2007 (UTC)