Wikimedia is sponsoring a Boston-area workshop on Wikipedia and Higher Education in early July, to celebrate the close of a successful year of the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative. The project saw almost 20 universities have at least one professor and class do major class projects that contributed to popular public knowledge by creating articles or reviewing wikipedia categories in their area of study.
Many profs outside of public policy were interested as well, and there is hope that this model will expand in the future, becoming a standard option for departments and professors in all fields to consider when laying out their curricula. (and working through not only Wikipedia but also other global public repositories of knowledge.) There is some good anecdotal evidence that when students know their work is actually going to be used, they [surprise!] take it more seriously, enjoy it more, and learn more from it. If you know of a class that did something like this outside of public policy this year elsewhere in the country, I'd like to hear about it; I'm compiling a recent list. There will be a party the evening of July 9 at Simmons, with some space left for community members to come meet the workshop participants. Please let me know offlist if you are interested. [ We are also looking for a DJ - suggestions welcome! ] Warmly, SJ +1 617 529 4266 _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.freeculture.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss
