Wikipedia talk:Education Working Group

As Wikipedia functions on community consensus we will need to make sure that proposals get community consensus before being implemented.--

Agreed. Let me preface my remarks by saying that I'm a community college biology/chemistry instructor and also a Wikipedia editor of seven years, with experience in all of our major content review processes (Peer review/Did you know.../Good article/Featured article). Hopeful statistics notwithstanding, from what I've seen, the education projects have created a great deal of ill-will among the English Wikipedia community, and very little enthusiasm. As someone who's worked on a a novel project at his own college, I realize that there's a great deal of inertia and institutional friction to overcome in doing so, and the average Wikipedia editor probably doesn't realize how much work has gone on campus-side to make this project happen. But I think it's very important for people involved with the project to acknowledge that the broader editing community does not really seem very happy with the project right now.

Obviously, it's important to work out some kind of governance structure for the project, which appears to be the focus of the current proposal. But no matter how carefully balanced the structure is, if the project doesn't address the problems that are irritating the Wikipedia community, its participants will, at best, find themselves treated as second-class citizens. Some of the key problems I've seen brought up are:

1. Lack of engagement. Some students "fire-and-forget" their work, and attempts to engage them in conversation at their talk pages, on article talk pages, or in the content review processes fail utterly. It's understandable that students won't be perfectly conversant with all of our good practices, but when they're not willing to take instruction or make efforts to improve their editing, it's infuriating.
2. Defying community norms. The incidents that have probably generated the most unpleasantness are those in which a student article doesn't measure up to our standards at Articles for Deletion, Did you know..., Good articles, etc. and a professor or ambassador intervenes to insist that the rules that apply to everyone else be relaxed or suspended because the article is part of an Education Project. (With, perhaps, the tacit implication that if you don't agree, you're against Education.) I believe there's also been some subversion of these processes, e.g., passing an article as a Good Article after a review far more cursory than our usual standard.
3. These problems are generally exacerbated by the fact that they're often multiplied over large numbers of students working in a single subject area, overwhelming existing editors in the area. Mistakes are a great deal more troublesome when made in high volume—that's why we have specialized procedures for dealing with automated edits, for instance—and offenses that might have been smoothed over were they occasional cut to the quick when they're committed several times a day.

Dealing with this is going to involve not only close engagement with the community, but some careful thought and research into what kind of student work is performed on Wikipedia and how professors evaluate it. My quick take is that many of the problems stem from professors assuming that writing an article on Wikipedia is basically similar to a student writing an essay or research paper. This tends to put students at odds with Wikipedia policies on

original research and sourcing, among other issues. We should be thinking about ways in which students can demonstrate their knowledge and contribute to Wikipedia outside of the I-will-write-a-new-article-by-myself-and-then-run-away format that's generating so much angst. (For instance, having a student go to the talk page of an article and list, say, five or ten *suitable* sources that might improve the article, with a one to three sentence abstract of each, would probably do loads more good for Wikipedia than creating Yet Another Obscure Short Article on an essay-like topic.) Choess (talk) 04:15, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply

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Sounds good I hope you are running as you have my vote :-) --

talk · contribs · email) 04:32, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply

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I wish I was, but I don't think I can make the time commitment in good conscience at present; I don't want to volunteer for something and then proceed to drop my end. :-( That said, I'll try my best to pitch in and try to develop some of these methods. Maybe I'll do some brainstorming on the Education Board. Reviving that was a good idea—not only is doing things onwiki more open, but it's very asynchronous. That's not so good if you're trying to hold a meeting before a deadline, but it's great in that people can engage and disengage as time permits.

It might be a good idea to look for other academics who are Wikipedia-engaged, not just for the working group but for general brainstorming, kibitzing, sanity testing, and informal advice in general. (After all, one of the strengths of Wikipedia is that it can capture and combine a small amount of effort from a large number of people...) For instance, my wiki-friend Ruhrfisch (talk · contribs) is a chemistry professor, but he's also written a bunch of FAs and is one of the prime movers behind Peer Review, so I'm sure he has a good perspective on both "sides" of the project. I think having people around who have a foot in both camps and can bridge the gap between structure offline and community processes online is really helpful. For instance, Ironholds (talk · contribs), a fairly prolific creator of good content, is now also Okeyes (WMF) (talk · contribs). I don't think it's coincidental that he's been a success as a WMF liaison for the Article Feedback Tool. Choess (talk) 05:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am concerned that the commitment of "one hour of work per week from May 2012 to November 2012" is greatly underestimating the commitment that will be required to do a good job. As a new spin-off organization there will be an enormous number of tasks for the new education organization to handle. In addition to addressing the numerous concerns about the current program from community members, the new group will need to deal with funding, legal issues, and relations with established groups like WMF, ArbCom, administrators, and content reviewers. The individuals who are on the Working Group will need to communicate with each other and with numerous other volunteers, paid staff, and possibly outside organizations like universities and chapters. It seems to me that volunteer resources are too scarce and the time demands too high for this working group to have a realistic chance of recruiting a good number of people who are reasonably qualified to work on a small spin-off education nonprofit 5-10 hours a week for several months. I regret being a bit pessimistic, but I don't expect a lot of success with recruiting and retaining high quality Working Group members who can commit so many volunteer hours, and I think that one hour a week is an unrealistically low expectation. Pine^(talk) 03:42, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Great question. I absolutely agree with you about the time needed to run an Education Program, which is why the Working Group is not the Education Program Structure. The Working Group's role is to determine what the structure is and do what's necessary to form it. So, if the Structure is to be affiliated with a university, the Working Group will determine which university is best suited to host it and work with staff there to make it happen; or if it's a new nonprofit, the Working Group may choose to hire consultants to help them set up the organization legally and get help with grant writing, etc. The Working Group's role is to set up the Education Program Structure, but it will be the Structure (which we think will likely need to have full time staff people in roles similar to Jami's) that will answer the questions and concerns about the program, etc. We absolutely agree that it's too much for the Working Group, led by volunteers, to take that all on from June 2012 onward. That's why we (meaning WMF) intend to keep running the program through May 2013. That means the Structure will have had 10 months from the Kick-Off Meeting to get set up and be working in conjunction with WMF staff before they actually will need to take on the running of the U.S. and Canada programs. Does that help clarify the situation? -- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 05:30, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the next question is why is the WMF wanting to give this up? I am happy to see them continue with their role in managing this program. I am not convinced another structure will be better.--

talk · contribs · email) 08:49, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply

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Doc James, I'll be bold and answer that. The FAQ says "we believe that the Education Program should be led by our volunteers who have made this program successful: Wikipedians and academics" and "local-level decisions can and should be made by the Education Program Structure or its equivalents in other countries. Therefore, tasks like recruiting instructors, orientating professors, and developing a program plan should be handled by the local structure and not the Wikimedia Foundation." I believe that what the FAQ means by "local-level" is US and Canada. Pine^(talk) 09:06, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi LiAnna, that helps somewhat. Is the working group encouraged to be visionaries of what the ideal structure would be if all needs were fully funded at whatever level the structure requires to establish and operate? This idealistic scenario isn't one that's frequently encountered in the real world of budget limitations. If WMF is willing to pay for any shortfalls from grant money then maybe this is realistic because then the new organization could afford to hire a few staff people and have them do a significant amount of the work. Then the Working Group and its successor volunteer supervisory group would function mostly as "boards of directors" with an executive director and staff handling most of the necessary communication, fundraising, legal work, and supervision of volunteers. Pine^(talk) 09:20, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly, although let me clarify the budget question. There's obviously a difference between the new organization working hard to apply for grants and still being short a small percentage of the operating budget and the new organization not trying to get anything and expecting WMF to pay for everything. I wouldn't expect us to fund the second scenario at all since it seems like a hopeless cause, but I'd say it's highly likely we'd fund the first scenario. Hope that helps. -- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 16:48, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

James, another answer to your question: these sorts of catalyst projects are meant to be short-term seeds for community growth, not long-term management of content and participation. As with the regional offices in parts of the world with small editing communities, we want to develop community networks that can take over work started by staff + facilitators + partners. We don't want to turn community roles into staff roles. Compare how WLM is organized - a distributed model that doesn't require extensive budgets or staff or international travel, but makes it easy for thousands of people to get their local communities involved. Similarly, there remains a solid amount of classroom and student work done outside of the managed WP-in-Ed framework, with no funding at all; that's clearly in pursuit of the same goal, and should be part of the long-term thinking about how to let every school get involved in some way. – SJ + 04:57, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Ambassadors because it is relevant to more than just the US and Canada programs. The Working Group is only for the US and Canada.

Pine^(talk) 23:39, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why are we considering splitting the organization that deals with education in Canada and the US from the organization that deals with education in other areas of the world? The experience we gain from one area of the world will be applicable to other areas and thus IMO it would be best to keep things together rather than to fragment them.--

The education systems in various countries differ. In the Canada it's not quite so drastically different from the U.S.'s, but there are still certain aspects, such as widespread French-speaking/bilingual communities and, frequently, semesters that overlap with American semesters. By focusing on a single nation at once, a program can more efficiently manage its clients. At the same time, it would be wonderful for both programs to subscribe to the same principles and branding system for global consistency in quality and format. Rob SchnautZ (WMF) ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:29, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This seems like a basic problem to me also. We all want to see a global education community develop; anything that intentionally fragments that -- and then incorporates to set the fragmentation in stone -- seems like heading in the wrong direction. – SJ + 03:02, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Project members: I am working on a draft for an "English Wikipedia Board of Education". Your comments would be appreciated. The working draft is at User:Pine/drafts/ENWP Board of Education. Please comment on the talk page. Thank you! Pine^(talk) 23:16, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The first meeting of the working group was last week on July 16 and 17, 2012. The goal of the group is to formulate an enhanced structure for the U.S. and Canada Wikipedia Education Program (WEP) to enable future growth and innovation. Between now and December 2012, the working group will develop a collaborative plan for the future of the WEP. The working group knows that the wider community wants and should have a voice in this process, and so a Request for Comment (RFC) will be issued within the next few months to solicit feedback from the Wikipedia community, educators and ambassadors. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:41, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a summary anywhere of how this discussion from July intersects with the ongoing global education work, or similar work happening without all this infrastructure on various WikiProjects? Thanks, – SJ + 03:03, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

SJ, there isn't much in the way of summaries as yet of the EWG's progress; our discussions can been seen on the talk pages of the sub-pages within our draft space: User:Mike Cline/USCAN Working Group Drafts. We will be preparing various summaries of our preliminary activities in the next week leading up to our next meeting. As for how the EWG's planning is affecting ongoing education projects - in short, it isn't. We are very much still in planning stages, and the WMF will continue co-ordinating ed. projects through the Spring 2013 term. The Interior (Talk) 03:26, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is typical chapter activity, so by necessity it was done by the WMF itself for the USA (but only with the justification that it was meant to serve as a globally-useful pilot), but I'm really surprised to hear that this "working group" will also deal with Canada: has the local chapter been informed, does it agree, is it involved in the activity? --Nemo 07:25, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Nemo, lone Canadian member of the working group here. Working with the Canadian chapter, as well as key US regional chapters (NYC, DC, etc.) is one of our priorities. We will be getting in touch with Canada and the others this fall as we move forward with our timetable. Will be able to answer your questions better in the coming months. To my knowledge, the Canadian chapter has not worked extensively with education projects, the exception being DocJames' med student editing drive last year and some work with campus clubs [1]. The Interior (Talk) 15:37, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good point. Germany has similar education partnership programs, and they are handled by the chapter. It seems like a good traditional role for national chapters - I hope that WM-CA can support this work in Canada, and that the regional US chapters can do so in their areas. You are right that this is a gap not yet filled by any national US group. – SJ + 03:06, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]