[Foundation-l] Wikiversity - courses

Fri Dec 16 19:48:39 UTC 2005

Cormac Lawler wrote:

>If the board is
>nervous about the didactic model (eg. as Angela said that she was
>concerned that Wikimedia would be ridiculed if Wikiversity was widely
>advertised and (I presume) wasn't ready for incoming students), then
>it could still allow for the remaining two models (which ironically
>are at polar ends of the pedagogical spectrum), without too much fear
>of backlash from the press or wider public. However, I would add that
>excluding the didactic model for now would bitterly disappoint some
>contributors.
>
>  
>
I want to add my $0.02 here asking for clarification about this issue as 
well, and an understanding if the concern about no on-line courses is to 
be something temporary (just during the start-up phase of Wikiversity) 
or if this is a permanent exclusion on the part of the board.  It also 
cuts deep into some major differences between Wikiversity and Wikibooks, 
as Wikibooks is a place to create instructional materials (particularly 
textbooks), but not appropriate to schedule a class and display syllibi 
for a particular course (more of what Wikiversity is about).  The 
reasoning for why on-line courses is to be excluded IMHO has not been 
satisfactorily explained to the participants on existing parts of 
Wikiversity other than just a simple whim or suggestion, nor what 
philosophical camp is pushing for that concept.

Obviously there are hundreds of different opinions on what Wikiversity 
ought to be, just based on the participation of the voting process of 
Wikiversity in the first place.  Nobody is advocating that we create 
instantly a multi-college advanced degree-granting research university. 
 Even the best universities started with a simple foundation, and I can 
give countless examples of even relatively "new" universities with 
humble origins, and I think Wikiversity should be no different.  In the 
case of Wikiversity, there is also an existing community that has 
already gone off into some interesting directions, so any exclusions or 
restrictions are also going to have to address current content that has 
already been created and try to fit within the current framework that 
already exists at Wikibooks and de.wikiversity.  The minutes of the 
board meeting didn't seem to address that issue at all.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning