Universitians and friends,
On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 5:58 PM, Scott wrote:
I just created a beginning, wiki Software Library at World University and School - see Software Libraries: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Software_Libraries for the initial resources - and added links to this in the following WUaS, wiki subjects -
see the WUaS Computer Science wiki subject page for this and related links -
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Computer_Science#World_University_and_School_Links -
Educational Software: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Educational_Software -
Library Resources: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Library_Resources -
Programming: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Programming.
WUaS, which is like Wikipedia with MIT OCW, plans to develop in all 7,105+ languages and 204+ countries, - for open, wiki teaching and learning, in addition to free, C.C., MIT OCW-centric, university degrees, beginning in the U.N. languages after English - so not only will this extensible WUaS 'Software Libraries' find form in all languages and countries, but WUaS's plans to move to Wikidata will make this a database. MIT-centric WUaS students will eventually add to, and develop, these libraries greatly I suspect.
Best regards,
Scott
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On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 1:57 PM, Scott wrote:
M & G,
In response to your wiki-educational ideas, in addition to continuing to link, and curate (modestly in the current, WUaS's Wikia's primitive phase) online universities like Wikiversity at WUaS's Course Listings' Aggregates section on the main Courses' page - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses#Course_listings.27_aggregates - with plans for this in each of 7,105+ languages and 204+ countries, WUaS is also planning free, C.C., online, MIT OCW-centric degrees - see the Admissions' wiki, subject, page links for these degrees - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Admissions_at_World_University_and_School#World_University_and_School_Links - first in English, then in the United Nations' languages, and then in large and middle-sized languages, in addition to being a wiki-school in all languages and countries. The new, WUaS Software Libraries' wiki extensibility - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Software_Libraries - into all languages will complement all the other Software Libraries out there, and in all languages, and WUaS may eventually aggregate many of the larger ones.
GM, WUaS is growing ever so gradually, monthly business meeting by monthly business meeting ... but we're creating an online, accredited, global university, like Wikipedia with MIT OCW.
(The agenda for today's just completed, online, WUaS, monthly business meeting is here - http://worlduniversityandschool.blogspot.com/2013/07/july-13-open-business-meeting-agenda-at.html - and here is yesterday's invitation to WUaS monthly business meeting - http://worlduniversityandschool.blogspot.com/2013/07/invitation-to-wuas-monthly-business.html).
May I add you both to WUaS's monthly email list for its open business meeting (there's a 2nd, sporadic, email list, which can be as many as a few emails a day - light compared with this one - but still a lot for some)?
Let's stay in touch about some of this, since there will be opportunities for free, online degrees, - and MIT OCW-centric WUaS degrees in Dutch, as well, in conjunction with a growing WUaS wiki.
Best,
Scott
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On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 12:18 PM, Scott MacLeod
Hi M and GM,
I'll respond off-list about your wiki-educational ideas.
Best,
Scott
On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 2:33 AM, GM wrote:
Hoi M,
The one thing that makes it easy for you is that you speak English. For other languages there are not the same amount and diversity of resources. While I have my reservations about the feasibility of what Scott proposes, his proposal is for all the Wikipedia languages and then some.
If he is able to achieve his thing "only" for the Wikipedia languages it will be a roaring success in my eyes.
Thanks,
GM
On 13 July 2013 09:21 AM, M wrote:
Hi Scott,
I'm personally very interested in the future of online education, and I appreciate your enthusiasm about the subject. However, I wonder if your energy would be more productive if it was directed to an older project. Have you heard of Wikiversity? It is already multilingual and doesn't have advertisements from hosting on Wikia. However, even though I knew about Wikiversity when I was still in high school, I've actually been surprised at how little I've used it over the years. I think it is trying to solve a problem that I never encountered. I think learning is one of the easiest things to do on the internet, and it has been even easier in the post-Wikipedia era now that so much of the most important information has been well summarized, consistently formatted, and heavily linked. If I check my YouTube subscriptions right now, I get free, full-length lectures in my feed from Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, Yale, UCLA, Technion, UPenn, IIT Bangalore, and Cornell. I remember when MIT OpenCourseWare first came out, and it's been incredible to see how e-learning has flourished since then. I have over a hundred YouTube channels that are primarily educational. My needs are met if I know what I'm looking for or if I just want to be surprised by some current, stimulating educational content. The software library initiative we have been discussing in this thread would be a hybrid of a wiki and a regular source control system typically used in open source projects. Like I said, I can still think of several reasons why it might not work, but I keep finding myself thinking a few times every week that maybe we should try.
M
Hi, M and G!
Great observations and questions, M:
"If I look at the World University page for nanotechnology and the Wikiversity page for nanotechnology I don't see why this needs to be a separate project.
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Nanotechnology
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Topic:Nanotechnology
"
In my somewhat limited communications with the Wikimedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia folks, - the communication channels aren't at all clear, and I've explored growing these over many months/years now, and I simply don't hear back about any of my inquiries - I've often wondered how to collaborate closely with Wikipedia to particularly create course-centric (primarily great universities-centric, C.C. resources, - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses#University_course_listings - and especially C.C. MIT OCW, now in many languages, and in video), subject pages for open teach and learning - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/SUBJECT_TEMPLATE - based on a Wikipedia article.
WUaS's course-centric, subject pages for open teach and learning are at the core of one main idea for WUaS wiki teaching, where you or anyone can teach to web camera to Youtube for 3 minutes, for example, and / or start a new, wiki, Subject page - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects.
This great universities' course-centricity is a key aspect of WUaS working with Wikidata, when that Wikimedia process becomes clearer amongst them, but I don't know how to further this inquiry, due to lack of response from them.
MIT OCW-centric WUaS is seeking 11th and 12th grader applicants this autumn in English to matriculate online in autumn 2014, and we haven't been able to communicate with Wikidata very well.
Another of Wikidata's developers, with whom I've communicated quite sympathetically over the years about some possible, Wikidata / WUaS collaborations, including making a WUaS Subject page out of any Wikipedia article for teaching and learning, is no longer on the Wikimedia Deutschland page - http://www.wikimedia.de/wiki/Mitarbeiter (which now has 58 employed Wikimedians on it, up from 8 within the year) - and may still be a post-doc at Oxford. And another key developer seems sympathetic, but we haven't communicated very much at all.
So that's where WUaS stands, and your thoughts for merging and combining our wiki-foci are much welcome.
One of WUaS's strengths is our 7,105+ all-languages' and 204+ all-countries' plan for a whole variety of reasons, including making beneficial, free, online education universal, - with free, accredited, MIT OCW-centric degrees, and as wiki.
Whom would you suggest I/we communicate with at Wikimedia, or elsewhere, about this further?
Thanks,
Scott
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S and G:
I think one of the best things about productivity on wikis is that you don't have to contact anyone or find a leader. If you see a way to make something better you can go ahead and do it. If people agree with you it will stay that way. If people disagree with you then you will work with them until everyone is happy. For example, I just added the MIT courses listed on the WU page to the Wikiversity page.
M
M and G,
Thanks again.
As a little history, I tried to help a friend start a new entry in Wikipedia, about a SF Bay Area peace activist - David Ray Hartsough - and we seemed to meet all the Wikipedia criteria for posting including articles of a neutral point of view, but his entry is still not up, although you'll find his name here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Peaceforce - and Wikipedia said they had a backlog of some months and more than 1,000 entries, last November 2012. And my friend who tried to post this entry - in the wiki 'now-moment', then - hasn't been able to communicate with Wikipedia about it, that I've heard. I've had challenges like this with adding quite a few other new entries, and resources, to Wikipedia. For example, WUaS isn't up yet at Wikipedia, and I've tried a number of times; a WUaS wiki subject page (of the same topic) is present once in Wikipedia in the Nontheist Quakers' Wikipedia page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheist_Quakers - but when I just looked it's one edit back and not not easily accessible, involving rolling back the 7 July 2013 - to get it posted again. Perhaps WUaS should try other languages.
That said, perhaps I could try gradually adding the courses and resources from all approximately 590 WUaS pages to Wikipedia, and see what happens.
How would one keep the current links in the WUaS wiki, in the hypothetical, newly-edited, Wikipedia articles, so that they wouldn't disappear with subsequent edits, for pedagogical reasons, when access to them in the Wikipedia history doesn't have merit, again for WUaS pedagogical reasons?
With this pedagogical focus, and my somewhat limited interactions with a wide variety of wikis (especially Wikimedia ones), would you suggest maintaining a separate, yet related to Wikipedia, WUaS wiki? Or would you suggest starting to build all of these pages in Wikipedia, but as unique WUaS pages, with an unique editorial process, pedagogically informed? I suspect the latter - a separate WUaS Wikipedia wiki in Wikipedia - makes most sense for pedagogical reasons, and for getting WUaS involved with Wikidata, if at all possible. Do you know if this is possible? Can you possibly please point to precedents? Pedagogical reasons are significant when extending into all 7,105+ languages and 204+ countries, and especially for accreditation reasons, as well as planned Law and Medical Schools, in many of 204+ countries and main languages there.
And the new, WUaS Software Libraries' wiki extensibility, in a Wikipedia-related WUaS wiki - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Software_Libraries - developing into all languages will complement all the other Software Libraries out there on the web, including various ones under Wikimedia's umbrellas, and in all languages, and countries (for legal reasons, as well as accrediting), and WUaS may eventually aggregate many of the larger ones in different ways than Wikimedia's.
Thanks,
Scott
Hi M and GM,
Thanks for this information, M ... For the wiki side of WUaS, it's an interesting idea.
What are the developer email lists for Wikiversity, if there are some? And what's a web page for its criteria for editorial inclusion/exclusion?
Would you suggest, for example, adding all of the WUaS links in the links' sections too - e.g. http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Computer_Science#World_University_and_School_Links ? I'm skeptical that Wikiversity would allow these WUaS links. But perhaps there is already much precedent of linking to other non-Wikimedia wikis at Wikiversity.
Here are some initial, possible concerns and questions:
a.
A differential Wikiversity / WUaS wiki-editorial policy could be a benefit when accrediting for free, C.C., degrees in many other countries and languages, for example, when you write:
"You can't prevent specific content in an article on Wikipedia from being removed in subsequent edits unless an administrator locks the entire article because it is being vandalized too much".
when courses on the WUaS Economics' page, - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Economics - or specific references, start getting removed, for example, 5 years out.
I need to look further at the initial accreditation agencies vis-a-vis the Bureau of Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) state of California requirements as well as Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC senior) requirements, and think through what would be helpful for students in the open, wiki, teaching and learning which WUaS envisions. Given my previous limiting Wikipedia editorial experiences, I'm concerned about jumping into a pre-formed wiki, such as Wikiversity, which won't allow WUaS to build on our present Wikia wiki, or define editorial criteria into the future.
b.
Could individuals teach to their web camera - e.g. a Sal Khan and add an one 3 minute video after 3 minute video at Wikiversity (e.g. about farming practices in eastern Ghana to others in western Ghana on their cell phones, by illiterate farmers, in their language, or Sanskrit language fine points, or financial statistical anomalies), or would this be considered a soap box, by some Wikiversity stewards? This is one plan for WUaS, and given my history with Wikipedia, my experience would lead me to think that stewards might err on the side of speedy deletion. But I also appreciate the depth of wiki-experience that Wikimedia and perhaps Wikiversity (which I don't know very well) have 'information-technologized' since 1999-ish, and subsequent beginnings, while also seeing great value in multiple wiki editorial policies, each drawing on Wikidata in a different way.
c.
What are Wikiversity's interlingual plans vis-a-vis Wikidata? I see many languages listed at the side, but the beauty of Wikidata is its integration.
d.
How adaptable is Wikiversity to the present WUaS Subject Template format - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/SUBJECT_TEMPLATE?
e.
Are matriculated, WUaS, student 'sandbox' pages possible, that could then become 'real' pages, at some point, or not?
f.
What's Wikidata's articulation with Wikiversity? Plans? Where are some site statistics for Wikiversity? In point of fact, not many people have edited WUaS at Wikia, but this may well change as WUaS matriculates students, for example, or engages a different wiki.
g.
WUaS is planning for MIT OCW-centric classes on wikis. How integrable are these with Wikiversity?
h.
What would be the best way to get in touch with the Wikimedia Wikiversity developing editorial process for unique WUaS situations? Who in Wikimedia knows Wikiversity well with whom I might correspond, and is a good, thoughtful, sympathetic communicator?
i.
When I look at the nanotechnology Wikiversity topic page you added the 4 MIT OCW courses to - http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Topic:Nanotechnology - WUaS's course-centricity, where anyone can teach to the subject, by adding references etc., and defined by the courses at the top, doesn't really work, and about which I have hesitations.
When I come to this section of the page you sent - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#When_you_wonder_what_to_do - I think a) David Ray Hartsough and b) World University and School, as well as c) Democracy School, another 'dis-allowed' speedily-deleted item I tried to add, among a handful of others, are all elements that should be in an encyclopedia, and that the Wikipedia editorial process was flawed in all these cases, and went against the grain of its original intentions, with no means of addressing this, thus far.They are, for one, all historical entities, which are something good Encyclopedias generally systematically include. Any suggestions on how to add them at this late stage in the game, in English?
How does your planned, Software Library in those languages, differ from SemanticWiki / MediaWiki / Wikidata? What is the software plan? What's the 'vision' for the plan? What are some already existing somewhat similar projects/examples? Will it depart from Wikidata as well as Drupal / Plone? How many languages will it be in? This looks like a fun project.
It might make sense to test some of my observations, questions and concerns above, - for example by putting courses at the top of a page, or starting some pages based on the WUaS Subject Template, - and then by making some edits to Wikiversity, but I'm curious too to explore a separate entity. WUaS would like the page layout to inspire a wiki teaching and learning conversation, on the one hand, as, on the other, matriculating classes for free, C.C. online, MIT OCW-centric, bachelor, Ph.D., law and M.D. degrees develops, on the other, and first in English, and then in the U.N. languages, and then in larger and smaller languages.
WUaS also plans to become the MIT-Harvard of the Internet, and in all languages, and the existing Wikiversity structure might limit this in a number of ways.
Thanks again for your thoughtful answers and ideas.
Hi M and G,
For a host of pedagogical, information technological, styling, and planning reasons, I don't think WUaS's monthly business meeting (2nd Saturdays of the month - all welcome) would recommend going forward with moving WUaS to Wikiversity, but I'll bring the idea before business meeting on 8/10.
More later and thanks,
Scott
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