[Foundation-l] Formal request: Wikiversity project

Mon Oct 11 17:42:26 UTC 2004

--- Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> What exactly is the reason to get a separate wikiversity fot this, and
> not make it a sub-project of Wikibooks? What can be done in
> Wikiversity that would not be okay in Wikibooks? I am afraid that
> splitting off will work negative rather than positive on the
> contribution rate.

Wikibooks rather, would be a sub-project of Wikiversity. Finished textbook
editions would be used in Wikiversity courses (all editing toward creating new
textbook editions would still be on Wikibooks). 

Just as a university is different from a textbook-writing house, Wikiversity
will be different from Wikibooks (textbooks are only one part of the materials
needed for a course; lesson plans, test question databases, classroom forums,
and other things are needed for online courses). Although, I did a long time
ago suggest expanding the focus of Wikibooks to be Wikiveristy, I am now of the
opinion that the two functions (creating textbooks and creating courses) would
best be separated. 

But I am suspending judgment as to if this is the right time to launch
Wikiversity since I'd like to see some more development of the idea and focus
toward improving our repository of textbooks first. We may also, for example,
wish to obtain a grant to develop a few specific courses prior to any launch.
Until then the idea could further be developed on Meta and Wikibooks.

BTW, I own Wikiversity.org and Wikiversity.com and hereby give those domains to
the Foundation. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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