[Textbook-l] Wikiversity

Tue Jun 20 14:33:53 UTC 2006

On 6/20/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> A number of comments:
>
> 1. If the aim is to provide multimedia learning materials for all age
> groups, not just university-level, then Wikiversity is a very bad name.
> Go for another one - Wikilearning, Wikicollege, Wikischool, something
> else. Just something which does not automatically imply that it is just
> for university-level learning. Otherwise, you will put off a lot of your
> target audience just with the name. Seriously. Give a dog a bad name...
> well, you know the rest.

Yes, well, this issue has been a long-standing one, about which
absolutely no clarity has emerged. There was an initial vote to see
which domain Daniel (Mav) would buy (see:
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikiversity/Old>) - then the
debate was reopened by Erik (Eloquence) (see:
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikiversity#Wikiversity_.3D.3E_Wikisophia
and <http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-May/003129.html>).
For me, the name does have its problems, but it seems to be still the
best bet to energise a community of people to contribute to it. I also
believe that we can explain a rationale for calling it Wikiversity
while providing for all levels, on a page like Wikiversity:About. No
name, it seems, is unproblematic (incidentally, wikilearning.org is
already taken and active).

>
> 2. Do bear in mind that Wikibooks does use multimedia already -
> at least in terms of audio files - and will wish to continue to do so. Some
> textbooks already have exercises and Q&As. If these can be made
> more dynamic on Wikibooks in the future, then I'm sure they will. Audio
> textbooks also, to my mind, fall within Wikibooks' domain. It's not
> clear to me whether the Wikiversity proposal seeks to dilute effort
> on these elements of textbooks, or not.

Absolutely not - Wikiversity will not seek to undermine or dilute the
effort or material on Wikibooks. Instead, I would see the material as
potentially overlapping with eachother, but formatted differently - in
textbook form on Wikibooks, and broken down into learning activities
on Wikibooks, which could be used by teachers as stand-alone lessons.
Some material will be duplicated, but the mission of Wikiversity is
not to duplicate this material unnecessarily - indeed, to promote the
development of further material on other projects if that is a more
appropriate place for it.

>
> 3. The aims Cormac lists for Wikiversity do not appear to agree with
> Michael Irwin's aims for Wikiversity. If the scope is not clear amongst
> the potential initial participants, it sure won't be clear amongst potential
> students.

I think many of Michael's aims for Wikiversity are absolutely in line
with what I and the rest of the Wikiversity subcommittee want.
However, givenm that there are significantly diverse views about a
topic as broad as education, it is extremely difficult to have a
blueprint for a project which incorporates all these views. What we
have tried to do on the Wikiversity subcommittee is to make a proposal
that gives it the flexibility to develop with this diversity, while
giving it a distinct identity from other projects. I anticipate there
to be significant debate about where the project should go (as
evidenced by the discussions thus far), but I feel this will only
strengthen its development, rather than the other way around.

>
> 4. Wikiversity seems very ambitious (more ambitious than Wikibooks, and
> Wikibooks, to date, has not yet delivered as much as we would wish). It's
> fair to ask - however noble the ideas- why you think they will work.

Yes, understood. I personally think it will work for the following reasons:
* It is such an engaging idea - to make multilingual learning
resources available under a free licence
* Wikis are making waves in the education world (as I have seen
through working on the Wikimania program committee) - Wikiversity
should be able to occupy a central role in bringing this community
together
* Wikimedia is a massive name in free-content resources - I believe
that people with an interest in education will get involved because of
this
* One of Wikiversity's aims is to act as a spur for development of
other Wikimedia projects - hopefully participants of other projects
will be able to see the benefits that learning communities can bring
to their own projects.
* People like to help other people - many participants of Wikiversity
helping other people to learn will probably be students and not
necessarily professors/lecturers/teachers etc. This creates both
challenges and opportunities - but in order to make it work, we will
need to recognise and accept this. By providing a fully open space for
peer-learning, a user-base is opened up, which, I believe, is
unprecedented both in scale and scope.

>
> Kind regards
>
> Jon

Thanks,

Cormac

>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>; Wikimedia textbook discussion <textbook-l at wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Monday, 19 June, 2006 1:10:41 PM
> Subject: [Textbook-l] Wikiversity
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> Wikiversity is a proposed Wikimedia project, based specifically around
> education and learning - the proposal to set up Wikiversity as a
> Wikimedia project is at:
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Modified_project_proposal>.
> This proposal has been an attempt to address the fact that the last
> proposal (see: <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity>) was not
> approved by the board (the background to this is summarised on the
> current proposal's page).
>
> For the last three months or so, the proposal (which was already in
> development) has been extended and reworked by the Wikiversity
> subcommittee (see:
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity_subcommittee>). The
> subcommittee is now pretty much satisfied that we have constructed a
> proposal and scope for the project which gives it the flexibility to
> develop, but also the clear rationale to exist as a separate project.
> I'm now in the process of negotiating this with the Special Projects
> Committee, hopefully to get it set up quite soon indeed :-).
>
> In brief, the proposal is to:
> *Host multimedia learning materials for all levels (ie not just
> university) in all languages
> *Develop learning communities around these materials
> *Host research - possibly original research (though this will need to
> be discussed by its community)
>
> There is more to the proposal and scope and, if you are interested, I
> would urge you to read the proposal and its related pages, which you
> can find through a navigational template at the top right of
> meta:Wikiversity pages. There is also a very basic mock-up of the
> front page of Wikiversity, geared towards the current proposal, at:
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Example>.
>
> One of the things the board last recommended was that the community be
> "joyful" about the proposal before setting up Wikiversity. So, this
> post is to gauge just how joyful people are about the proposal, what
> you think works and what doesn't, what you would change, add, remove,
> etc. I would like to use this thread to discuss what the best way
> forward for Wikiversity would be, so we can give it the best start we
> can.
>
> Yours,
>
> Cormac Lawler (m:User:Cormaggio)
> (on behalf of the Wikiversity subcommittee)
>
>
> PS: Please feel free to post this message (or a modification of it) at
> appropriate places - I'm just posting this initially to foundation-l
> and textbook-l (even though it slightly duplicates a discussion
> already underway at the latter).
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