Pamela M. Salela, Associate Professor
Library Instructional Services Program
Kara McElwrath, Assistant Director
Information Technology Services
Stardate 2007
The Colbert Report
The Word – Wikiality
http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/z1aahs/the-word--wikiality
-
Lacking authority
Anybody can publish anything
Banished from the halls of academia
Students are admonished to never use it for real
research
Stardate 2014
Dariusz Jemielniak, Professor
Kozminski University, Poland
Author: Common Knowledge: An Ethnography of Wikipedia.
2014. Stanford University
The Chronicle of Higher Education
“Wikipedia: A Professor’s Best Friend”
 American Sociological Association and American
Psychological Association promoting its development
 Excellent academic assignment:
 Requires documented research
 Requires the use of secondary resources
 Requires synthesizing facts
 Plagiarism resilient
 Real publishing experience – not just an academic exercise
Wikipedia has evolved over time
 In the beginning – “a free for all”
 Larry Sanger, Co-founder - “Wikipedia began as a
good-natured anarchy”
 Andrew McAfee, author of Enterprise 2.0: New
Collaborative Tools for Your Organization’s Toughest
Challenges (2009) -- “Wikipedia’s history reveals
that much effort has gone into defining the social
ground rules of the community so that its members
interact with one another in largely positive ways.
Current manifestation
 Over 77,000 editors
 Stringent rules for citing sources
 Arduous fact checking
 Strict style guide and publishing process
 Careful attention to copyright and ethics
 Dr. Michael Murphy argues that Wikipedia is as
rigorous as any academic publication
ACRL: Information Literacy Standards
 ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for
Higher Education Task Force is revising the standards
slated for publication in the summer of 2014.
 CHARGE: Update the Information literacy competency
standards for higher education so that they reflect the
current thinking on such things as the creation and
dissemination of knowledge, the changing global higher
education and learning environment, the shift from
information literacy to information fluency, and the
expanding definition of information literacy to include
multiple literacies, e.g., transliteracy, media literacy, digital
literacy, etc.
Evidence based….
Traphagan, et al - “Changes in college students’ perceptions
of use of web-based resources for academic tasks with
Wikipedia projects: a preliminary exploration.” 2014.
“Results suggest that Wikipedia activity, integrated into
regular course curriculum, led students to gain knowledge
about processes of Web-based information creation, become
more critical of information on the Web [in general], and
evaluate the use of publicly accessible Web-based resources
for academic purposes,” (p. 253).
Baccalaureate Goals (UIS)
Goals & Learning Outcomes for Baccalaureate Education
http://www.uis.edu/generaleducation/about/goals/
By emphasizing scholarship skills in the service of the public
good, UIS prepares students for life-long learning and
engaged citizenship. UIS prepares students to discover,
integrate, apply, and communicate knowledge for the benefit
of individuals, families, and communities.
1. Discovery of Knowledge
UIS graduates should be information and communication
technology literate, exhibiting a strong proficiency in
locating, reflectively comprehending, and synthesizing
appropriate college level readings, toward the goal of
knowledge creation.
I
Competencies include:
a. Reading baccalaureate-level materials effectively,
reflecting comprehension and synthesis.
b. Exhibiting a knowledge of and ability to effectively locate,
evaluate, interpret, and use information.
c. Exhibiting a knowledge of and ability to use information
and communication technologies.
Wikipedia in the Classroom
 Course context
 Library research course
 Team up with subject-based course
 English Department
 Long term commitment
 Instruction distribution / team work
 Librarian
 course instructor
 media services
Wikipedia Core Content Policies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Core_content_policies
 Neutral point of view – All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic
content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing
significant views fairly, proportionately and without bias.
 Verifiability – Material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all
quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source. In
Wikipedia, verifiability means that people reading and editing the
encyclopedia can check that information comes from a reliable source.
 No original research – Wikipedia does not publish original thought: all
material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source.
Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published
material that serves to advance a position not clearly advanced by the
sources.
Assignment complexity
 Capital Scholars 250B: Global Genders /
Transnational Sexualities (Dr. Michael Murphy, WGS)
 Honors class
 65% of grade
 Organized in groups (or not)
 Elements of Project:




Topic proposal
Annotated bibliography (library research workshop)
Hardcopy of article (student)
Presentation of Digitized article
Assignment Simplicity
 WGS473: The Politics of Reproduction
 Upper division class / includes graduate students
 15% of grade
 Individual project
 Elements of Project:






Addendum to term research paper
Graduate Students: original entry
Undergraduate Students: edits to existing
Annotated bibliography (library research workshop)
Oral progress reports spaced out by two weeks
Final presentation must be live
Done in Stages
 Early preparation
 Introduce wikipedia workshop leader early in semester
 Tutorials website: http://go.uis.edu/wikipedia
 Create Wikipedia logons in advance
 Wikipedia workshop – the mechanics
 Editing & style
 Practice exercise
 Copyright, importance of
 Content policies
Guide to Writing for Wikipedia
http://go.uis.edu/wikipedia
Demonstration of Editing
http://www.wikipedia.org/
Assessment & Ethics
 Grading cannot be based on judgment of Wikipedia
editors
 Grading cannot be contingent on being published
 Live presentations
 If not published, show sandbox
 Peer interaction
 Discuss preparation & research
 Discuss process that took place after submitting for
publishing
Special Thanks to
Dr. Michael Murphy, Assistant Professor
Women & Gender Studies Dept.
University of Illinois at Springfield
Zachary Logsdon
IT Support Associate
Information Technology Services
University of Illinois at Springfield
Citations
Kilkku, Ville. (July 2, 2013). “The Evolution of Wikipedia from a Lean
Perspective.” 2 Cents on Communication.
http://www.kilkku.com/blog/2013/07/the-evolution-of-wikipedia-from-alean-perspective/
Jemielniak, Dariusz. (Oct. 14, 2014). “Wikipedia: A Professor’s Best Friend.”
In The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Sweeney, Meghan. (March 2012). “The Wikipedia Project: Changing Students
from Consumers to Producers.” Teaching English in the Two Year College.
Traphagan, Tomoko, et al. (2014). “Changes in college students’ perceptions
of use of web-based resources for academic tasks with Wikipedia projects: a
preliminary exploration.” Interactive Learning Environments. 22.3: 253-270.