Wikiversity:Feedback
This page is for anyone to give feedback on any aspect(s) of Wikiversity's structure, work, policies, materials, technology, support, etc. If you have a comment about Wikiversity - positive or negative - please leave it below - you might get faster responses when you write it in the Wikiversity:Colloquium. If possible, please give an example to back up your feedback, in order for others to understand the feedback, and to act upon it if necessary.
Feedback
[edit source]Seems to be disorganized
[edit source]The site seems to be very disorganized. I have found lots of wikis that have not been updated in ages and appear to be redundant. How do we delete these wikis? What is the purpose of "Categories"? They don't seem to fit anywhere yet I see them linked to on some pages.
- Just a point on terminology. There is only one wiki here. It's Wikiversity. The wiki has many pages. Being not updated recently may mean they are abandoned, or it may mean they are high quality and there's nothing else that needs to be added. Appearing redundant either means two contributors had a different vision for that topic, or they didn't search for the other before creating their own. They can likely be combined now into either a single page, or at least a single learning project. If you provide examples, we can give you suggestions of how to approach combining the examples you provide. Categories are used to identify pages that address similar concepts but are part of different learning projects. For example, there could be 8th Grade Biology, 10th Grade Biology, Microbiology, etc. All should have a Biology category so that anyone interested in biology can find these resources. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 00:21, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
Am I a student or a teacher?
[edit source]I am studying in a medical school. I reached Community_Health page while taking a test on community health itself. I had an instant realization that wikiversity deserves the spotlight that MOOCs hold currently. At the same time, I understand that there are very few open educational resources for medicine, online. So I took down wikiversity in my to-do list and came back a few days later. I have a couple of hundreds edits on wikipedia and editing wikipedia is straightforward for me. I was hoping I'd be able to follow the same algorithm in editing wikiversity pages. But the first impression I received is that courses in wikiversity are set by particular teachers or communities. For example the Community_Health page introduction refers to "our aim". So I was confused whether I should be editing the page straightaway or get in touch with someone as to what is acceptable on that page.
The next page I went to was Otolaryngology--Head_and_Neck_Surgery. This looks like a stub. There is a template on the top (welcome and expand) which says one or two words about developing the page, and then a whole large line about classifying the resource. I don't understand why classifying (adding categories?) is given so much prominence there.
Then I went to wikiversity main page. The main welcome box in the front page ends with "guided tour" and "start editing now" neither of which are about content development. So I created my userpage asking for help and left.
Today User:Dave_Braunschweig left me a message and I came back and started reading Wikiversity:Adding_content which is the page I should have been reading from the beginning. Asdofindia (discuss • contribs) 13:00, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
- I think your first impression is accurate. There is general agreement as to what an encyclopedia should look like, so there is great consistency in Wikipedia content. There is very little agreement on what a good learning resource should look like, even among those with advanced degrees in curriculum design, so there's much less consistency here. The best approach for adding Wikiversity content is probably to first look at page history for a page that interests you. Then see if the primary content developer is still active. If they are active, contact them and see how you can best contribute to the project. If they are no longer active, be bold and make the content better.
- Regarding Wikiversity:Adding content, as a new user, where do you think the best place to put a link to this page would be? -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:23, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
- I think Wikiversity: Adding content should be incorporated into the welcome and expand template. In fact, the template as of now is kind of pointless. It has a link to edit the article which everyone knows how to do. Instead, that link should be to adding content. The "classify" line can optionally be removed, maybe. Also a link in the welcome box on the front page would be ideal. "To learn more about Wikiversity, try a guided tour. To start editing now, learn about adding content." Asdofindia (discuss • contribs) 04:52, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks for the feedback. I've added that link to the front page. We don't really use the Welcome and Expand template often anymore. Many pages with that template could simply be deleted as having no educational objectives. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 04:03, 31 December 2014 (UTC)