[Textbook-l] Wikiversity and Wikibooks

Fri Jun 16 21:47:48 UTC 2006

I was interested to see Cormac ask us what we thought of the latest Wikiversity proposal.

I confess I still, after all this time, am unsure what it is: the name suggests that it is meant
to be for wiki-based university-level learning, but I don't think that's right. And if it's not
right, at the very least a new name would be advisable.

I would also like to question the relationship between Wikiversity and Wikibooks, as it really
is time for the separate Wikiversity project to leave Wikibooks module namespace behind -
I believe that would leave Wikibooks with the Wikiversity textbooks, which it would then
be able to integrate into its own systems and categorisations. Any Wikiversity project
pages could be moved to the Wikibooks namespace - although MetaWiki or the incubator
would seem to be better places.

I think this move is important. As some of you will be aware, I see the future of Wikibooks
as having a strong core set of textbooks suitable for school exams surrounded by many
other good textbooks for other types of studying. I am splitting these up into the following
(and bear in mind that a textbook may fall within none or more than one of these):
Wikijunior (for textbooks for 8 to 12 year olds)
Wikistudy (for textbooks for exams typically first sat at ages 15 to 19)
Wikiversity (or Wikiuniversity) (for university-level learning)
Wikiprofessional (for textbooks for professionals)
Wikilearn (for textbooks for adult learning)
Wikids (if we ever have books for under 8s)
These categorisations would, of course, sit alongside the current "by subject" style bookshelves.

Constructive comments would, as ever, be welcome.

Kind regards

Jon