Re: [Wiki-research-l] - solutions re academe Wiki
De: Richard Jensen rjen...@uic.edu
Para: Research into Wikimedia content and communities
wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
CC:
Enviado: Miércoles 23 de Mayo de 2012 6:30
Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l] - solutions re academe Wiki
Hi Richard.
Sadly I think this discussion demonstrates some hostility toward academe.
(here's a quote from yesterday addressed to me on this list:
...knowledge robberbarons standing athwart history imagining they and
their institutions alone, had the requisite skills and expertise to engage in
knowledge production. Until they didn't. Enjoy your new neighbors in trash
heap of history. I would code his emotional tone as hostile)
Well, it is true that this mismatch exists, mainly due to a different culture
clash (academia vs. open distributed production of knowledge).
I wouldn't characterize this as a problem exclusive to Wikipedia. In fact, it
affects all communities that follow the commons-based peer production paradigm.
Adaption will be progressive, and not very fast, since academia has been
following its current procedures since decades ago.
Well it's always nice to see people citing the lessons of history,
especially since I'm a specialist in that sort of OR. But the underlying
hostility is a problem that bothers me a lot and I have been trying to think
of
ways to bridge the gap. There is in operation a Wikimedia Foundation
Education
program that is small and will not, in my opinion, scale up easily to the
size
needed. In any case the Foundation plans to cut the US-Canada program loose
in
12 months to go its own way. see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group/Wikimedia_Foundation_Role
Perhaps the huge success of Wikipedia, and the fact that it was adopted by
millions of persons around the world at a very fast pace may introduce some
bias in our perception of what is 'scaling up' effectively. For sure, there are
thousands of universities and it might not be very realistic to think that 90%
of faculties will happily integrate Wikipedia editing in their classes next
year. Moreover, there are additional factors that, depending on the case, can
make it a bit difficult to succeed in this endeavour (for instance, I'm
thinking about conflicts of interest created by students that will be
evaluated, struggling to introduce content and hard-working wikipedians trying
to maintain articles in good shape). However, the undeniable truth is that
Wikipedia has now become a commodity for 99% of students (and scholars) today.
We will have to learn how to help each other to use our resources in mutual
benefit.
That said, I suspect that discontinuing this support in USA and Canada is not
linked to either a lack of interest from WMF in this area, or a low level of
success of this program. Funding is limited, and now enough start-up materials
have been produced and many people (ambassador/students/faculties) have been
trained in different univerisities. The next logical step, I would say, would
be to let them act as the new broadcast points for others, so that there is any
opportunity for the system to scale up (even if slowly). A centralized model
could never attain the same capillarity.
My own thinking is currently along two lines:
a) set up a highly visible Wiki prsence at scholarly conventions (in multiple
disciplines) with 1) Wiki people at booths to explain the secrets of
Wikipedia
to interested academics and 2) hands-on workshops to show professors how to
integrate student projects into their classes. (and yes, professors given
paid
time off to attend these conventions, often plus travel money.)
That is true, and it is something that the program is already doing in
different countries. As I said, there is a huge interest from many scholars.
Just as an example, faculties attending the last seminar I gave at University
of Salamanca ('Workshop on Wikipedia editing') sold out free seats within the
first 24 hours after the initial announcement. Most of attendees came from the
Faculty of Translation and Interpreting. There were also some librarians. For
some of them, it was their first contact with Wikipedia editing.
b) run a training program for experienced Wiki editors at a major research
library. (I'm thinking just of Wiki history editors here.) For those who
want it provide access to sources like JSTOR. Bring in historians covering
main
historiographical themes. I think this could help hundreds of editors find
new
topics, methods and sources that would lead to hundreds of thousands of
better
edits.
This is definitely a very nice suggestion. I concur in that it could be a way
to nurture the knowledge stream in the other direction (academia --
Wikipedia). Nevertheless, I still think that wikipedians will tend to favor
open access references, in the same way that (willfully or not) people favor
the open access Wikipedia on their web pages
Re: [Wiki-research-l] - solutions re academe Wiki
To be clear, my rhetorical flourish was not a hostile reaction to the academy itself (I am a dissertating PhD candidate after all) but to rather to its members' patronizing attitudes as embodied by Richard's mischaracterization of Piotr's point and institutional powers' model of profiting from others' freely-given labor while actively undermining competing approaches to knowledge production. While there is a long-standing tension on Wikipedia between openness and credential fetishism going back to Larry Sanger's (failed) editorial process for Nupedia, (failed) attempts to institute a defer to experts policy on Wikipedia (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deferring_to_the_experts), and (failing) attempts to have unpaid experts write and regulate Citizendium, expanding the academe's participation in Wikipedia is an entirely different matter from resisting an arrangement in which the actors which add the least value to scholarship have a tendency to profit the most. To be sure, open publication models (e.g., First Monday, PLoS ONE) introduce substantially more variability in the type and quality of scholarly contribution, but insofar as there are no marginal costs for digital distribution, why not let a thousand (peer-reviewed) flowers bloom and the community of scholars adjudicate their value should citation and replication? As for JSTOR being non-profit, that sobriquet hides any number of sins (see health insurance providers) -- you're welcome to extrapolate the difference between the revenue associated with ~3000 US institutions licensing some combination of JSTOR's 20 collections at an average annual price of ~$10k (http://about.jstor.org/fees/13008) and compare them with $17m in annual expenditures of the Wikimedia Foundation. While proprietary and open models for scientific knowledge publication each have their drawbacks, casting lots with the model having greater and more pernicious shortcomings through appeals to authority will not win many over. I don't understand how substantive peer review process will be substantially different under an open versus walled model. In the US, each still involves submissions funded by predominately by federal grant money or subsidized by (diminishing) state contributions, editorial control and review from hundreds of scholars freely giving their labor as a partial condition of employment by their home institutions, and distribution and archival in online databases supported and subsidized by institutional librarians. I don't believe anyone is arguing that knowledge production is free-as-in-beer: each academic domain will have different needs for scholarship (book reviews for history, rapid turnaround proceedings for computer scientists, etc.). Rather, these petitions reflect my belief that scholars should refocus their work towards outlets which limit the opportunity for Elsevier, et al. to enrich their shareholders to the considerable detriment of the austerity-wrecked citizens, scholars, and their academe who actually pay for and create this value. Finally, I believe we would be remiss as proponents of open publication if we did not also demand open publication of underlying data, programs, and algorithms and importance of replication as crucial components of scholarly work as we transition to new and more open models of science. On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 12:30 AM, Richard Jensen rjen...@uic.edu wrote: Sadly I think this discussion demonstrates some hostility toward academe. (here's a quote from yesterday addressed to me on this list: ...knowledge robberbarons standing athwart history imagining they and their institutions alone, had the requisite skills and expertise to engage in knowledge production. Until they didn't. Enjoy your new neighbors in trash heap of history. I would code his emotional tone as hostile) Well it's always nice to see people citing the lessons of history, especially since I'm a specialist in that sort of OR. But the underlying hostility is a problem that bothers me a lot and I have been trying to think of ways to bridge the gap. There is in operation a Wikimedia Foundation Education program that is small and will not, in my opinion, scale up easily to the size needed. In any case the Foundation plans to cut the US-Canada program loose in 12 months to go its own way. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Wikipedia:Education_Working_** Group/Wikimedia_Foundation_**Rolehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group/Wikimedia_Foundation_Role My own thinking is currently along two lines: a) set up a highly visible Wiki prsence at scholarly conventions (in multiple disciplines) with 1) Wiki people at booths to explain the secrets of Wikipedia to interested academics and 2) hands-on workshops to show professors how to integrate student projects into their classes. (and yes, professors given paid time off to attend these conventions, often plus travel money.) b) run a training program for experienced
Re: [Wiki-research-l] - solutions re academe Wiki
Hi Richard, you queried in a previous posting whether relations between Academia and Wikipedians were better in the UK. But I suspect that no-one is truly in a position to answer that. In both the US and the UK the situation will be complex, some Academics are Wikipedians, some Academics judge us by the quality we'd achieved by 2006 and really need to check again and reassess the project. Some Academics respect and value us for the way we try to teach today's kids not to cut and paste. Others despair at us as the source of much of the plagiarism they receive from students. Of course this is a very different issue to the debate about Open source freely available journals, a debate where some people on this list have strongly held and diametrically opposed views. Wikipedia is a Tertiary source not a Primary or Secondary one and cannot exist without those primary and secondary sources. So their continued health matters to us, but clearly there is a divide as to how that continued health is to be achieved, and indeed defined. Wikimedia is itself very much a part of the open source movement, but that doesn't mean that all Wikimedians believe that everything should be open source. As for your two suggestions about attending scholarly conferences and working with libraries, there has been a different emphasis between the US and the UK in the last couple of years. Here in the UK we have prioritised outreach to GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums), whilst the US prioritised Universities. That seems to be shifting, with the UK expanding its education links: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/EduWiki_Conference_2012 http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education_strategy Whilst the US is now expanding its GLAM program. I have participated in editathons we've had in the UK at both the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, I didn't take part in the British library one, but I gather it was a success. I think that would count as one of your training program for experienced Wiki editors at a major research library. The sort of articles coming out of these collaborations include http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoxne_hoard WSC On 23 May 2012 05:30, Richard Jensen rjen...@uic.edu wrote: Sadly I think this discussion demonstrates some hostility toward academe. (here's a quote from yesterday addressed to me on this list: ...knowledge robberbarons standing athwart history imagining they and their institutions alone, had the requisite skills and expertise to engage in knowledge production. Until they didn't. Enjoy your new neighbors in trash heap of history. I would code his emotional tone as hostile) Well it's always nice to see people citing the lessons of history, especially since I'm a specialist in that sort of OR. But the underlying hostility is a problem that bothers me a lot and I have been trying to think of ways to bridge the gap. There is in operation a Wikimedia Foundation Education program that is small and will not, in my opinion, scale up easily to the size needed. In any case the Foundation plans to cut the US-Canada program loose in 12 months to go its own way. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Wikipedia:Education_Working_** Group/Wikimedia_Foundation_**Rolehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group/Wikimedia_Foundation_Role My own thinking is currently along two lines: a) set up a highly visible Wiki prsence at scholarly conventions (in multiple disciplines) with 1) Wiki people at booths to explain the secrets of Wikipedia to interested academics and 2) hands-on workshops to show professors how to integrate student projects into their classes. (and yes, professors given paid time off to attend these conventions, often plus travel money.) b) run a training program for experienced Wiki editors at a major research library. (I'm thinking just of Wiki history editors here.) For those who want it provide access to sources like JSTOR. Bring in historians covering main historiographical themes. I think this could help hundreds of editors find new topics, methods and sources that would lead to hundreds of thousands of better edits. Richard Jensen __**_ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.**wikimedia.orgWiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wiki-**research-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l ___ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Re: [Wiki-research-l] - solutions re academe Wiki
The approach of getting university resources for Wikipedians is a necessary one. I've asked the foundation to make JSTOR a priority for 5 years now. This year they responded: they explicitly dropped it from the strategic plan as too low a priority. And to get active Wikipedians to use existing library collections on their own account is probably even more difficult. But it is possible: the NYC chapter has had two good workshops with the NYPL, and two with the Princeton archives. On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 12:30 AM, Richard Jensen rjen...@uic.edu wrote: Sadly I think this discussion demonstrates some hostility toward academe. (here's a quote from yesterday addressed to me on this list: ...knowledge robberbarons standing athwart history imagining they and their institutions alone, had the requisite skills and expertise to engage in knowledge production. Until they didn't. Enjoy your new neighbors in trash heap of history. I would code his emotional tone as hostile) Well it's always nice to see people citing the lessons of history, especially since I'm a specialist in that sort of OR. But the underlying hostility is a problem that bothers me a lot and I have been trying to think of ways to bridge the gap. There is in operation a Wikimedia Foundation Education program that is small and will not, in my opinion, scale up easily to the size needed. In any case the Foundation plans to cut the US-Canada program loose in 12 months to go its own way. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group/Wikimedia_Foundation_Role My own thinking is currently along two lines: a) set up a highly visible Wiki prsence at scholarly conventions (in multiple disciplines) with 1) Wiki people at booths to explain the secrets of Wikipedia to interested academics and 2) hands-on workshops to show professors how to integrate student projects into their classes. (and yes, professors given paid time off to attend these conventions, often plus travel money.) b) run a training program for experienced Wiki editors at a major research library. (I'm thinking just of Wiki history editors here.) For those who want it provide access to sources like JSTOR. Bring in historians covering main historiographical themes. I think this could help hundreds of editors find new topics, methods and sources that would lead to hundreds of thousands of better edits. Richard Jensen ___ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l -- David Goodman DGG at the enWP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG ___ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Re: [Wiki-research-l] - solutions re academe Wiki
one of my favourite academic minds (Eben Moglen) speaking about innovation under austerity and disintermediation =) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2VHf5vpBy8 ___ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Re: [Wiki-research-l] - solutions re academe Wiki
Sadly I think this discussion demonstrates some hostility toward academe. (here's a quote from yesterday addressed to me on this list: ...knowledge robberbarons standing athwart history imagining they and their institutions alone, had the requisite skills and expertise to engage in knowledge production. Until they didn't. Enjoy your new neighbors in trash heap of history. I would code his emotional tone as hostile) Well it's always nice to see people citing the lessons of history, especially since I'm a specialist in that sort of OR. But the underlying hostility is a problem that bothers me a lot and I have been trying to think of ways to bridge the gap. There is in operation a Wikimedia Foundation Education program that is small and will not, in my opinion, scale up easily to the size needed. In any case the Foundation plans to cut the US-Canada program loose in 12 months to go its own way. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group/Wikimedia_Foundation_Role My own thinking is currently along two lines: a) set up a highly visible Wiki prsence at scholarly conventions (in multiple disciplines) with 1) Wiki people at booths to explain the secrets of Wikipedia to interested academics and 2) hands-on workshops to show professors how to integrate student projects into their classes. (and yes, professors given paid time off to attend these conventions, often plus travel money.) b) run a training program for experienced Wiki editors at a major research library. (I'm thinking just of Wiki history editors here.) For those who want it provide access to sources like JSTOR. Bring in historians covering main historiographical themes. I think this could help hundreds of editors find new topics, methods and sources that would lead to hundreds of thousands of better edits. Richard Jensen ___ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
