John Goes wrote:
Hello All,
I'm a new to wikiversity, although I have been using wikipedia for quite
some time now. I actually stumbled on the wikiversity site today as I
independently thought of an idea for an "internet university" and have been
doing research on the idea, only to find that there have been efforts to do
something similar for some time.
I feel like I'm jumping into the middle of a discussion that I haven't heard
much of, so please forgive me for my ignorance of most things that have been
suggested and tossed about before.
I get the sense that the idea for Wikiversity is rather vague and nebulous
at the moment, with many conflicting ideas of where it should go and how it
should evolve, especially vis-a-vis accreditation.
Not as vague as you seem to think. Most of the people in the
discussion so far have experience with Wikipedia or Wikibooks and this
influences our thoughts of what might be possible with a wiki.
Accreditation near everyone agrees is for the future, if ever, after we
have some success. It takes quite a bit of resources and effort which
is probably way beyond the volunteer resources available initially.
The Wikimedia Foundation (which supports the servers Wikiversity will be
set up on) has mandated that we specifically acknowledge for newcomers
that we are not accredited and have no intention in the near future of
becoming accredited as a condition of their physically hosting the
wikiversity.org domain.
The vision of a free wikiversity for everyone to
attend, a respectable and
revolutionary new way to learn and receive high degrees, while very
egalitarian, seems like a very difficult task precisely because the idea is
so centralized. Every university, whether explicit or implict, has its own
values and "opinions" on what constitutes a good education. Any one
organization is never going to be able to please everyone and fit everyone,
even if nested in the internet.
The vision to date consists of making learning materials available in an
interactive form for participants to study or improve via online
collaboration in a wiki supported environment.
The approach I had originally considered was in
reaction to MITs
revolutionary decision to share their curriculum, lectures, ect with the
public, effectively allowing one an MIT education if one applied oneself.
The founding of wikiversity is clearly in response to a sense among many of
the vast potential of a new model of learning. Rather than arguing about
the exact form of wikiversity, I think there is great potential for private
setups, whether they be non for profit or otherwise, which can utilize
resources such as wiki and MIT.
My own idea is based on the system of Reed College. At Reed students
prepare in their first three years, through classes, for the writing of
their thesis, which is a requirement for graduation. For the entire senior
year they write the thesis with the help and supervision of one or more
professors. A successful online university based on such a system might
require academic supervisors, a virtual classroom in which to discuss the
course material, and teachers, primarily present to assist the student when
the student requests help, also serving an evaluative purpose.
Typically academic supervisors expect to get paid. Wikiversity will
initially be the efforts of volunteers.
I see no reason why a student with a well written and
perhaps important
thesis should have a problem getting a degree; although the practical
problems of this demand a creative solution.
This is one idea and I'm sure there are many other possible formats, as
there are many kinds of learners with their own goals and methods. I think
wikiversity would be most effective if it was able to operate in conjunction
with this and other private efforts.
Respectfully,
John Goes
Wikiversity materials are published under the GNU Foundation's FDL
license and are thus available to anyone, including private or public
universities who choose to use or improve the materials. The only
requirement of use is the expectation and requrirement that improvements
will be published under the same FDL copyright so they can be
incorporated into the growing commons of free human knowledge.
There is an active committee working towards getting our permanent
wikispace activated. It will be located at
wikiversity.org using
various prefixes for various languages identical to the way Wikipedia
and Wikibooks are setup within their domains.
Nice to have you with us.
lazyquasar