> 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 boosting these links to the top of results from search engines. On top of that, not anyone have access to certain references, since they do not have access to digital resources in university libraries or they do not have public libraries that pay access fees for those references. Perhaps this could be another opportunity for effort distribution, given that many quality references are not going to be freely accessible in the mid-term. Cheers, Felipe. > Richard Jensen > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > ----- Mensaje original ----- _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
