The Dashboard software that fuels Wiki Ed’s programs is now available for use across the whole range of Wikimedia projects and languages, from Arabic Wikibooks to Zulu Wiktionary. In partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation, I’ve been working to complete an “alpha” version of the Wikimedia Programs & Events Dashboard — an instance of the Wiki … Continued
Wiki Ed is welcoming the new year with a new Dashboard system! The new Dashboard has two major new features. There’s an online training system built in for instructors and students, and a new onboarding system. The New Instructor Orientation is available to anyone who hasn’t recorded their name and email address on the Dashboard. … Continued
This week, we’re unveiling ask.wikiedu.org, a question-and-answer platform to support Wiki Education Foundation’s programs. Wikipedia has detailed help pages on just about any Wikipedia-related topic you can think of. That’s the problem ask.wikiedu.org is trying to solve. With so much help text written over the years, it’s hard for new editors to find specific answers. … Continued
In July, I was in Mexico City for Wikimania, the global Wikimedia community’s annual conference. I was there to kickstart the adaptation of Wiki Ed’s Dashboard system for use beyond our programs, and to catch up with the latest developments in Wikimedia technology ecosystem. I’ll give a quick overview of what I was up to, … Continued
The newest version of the Wiki Ed Dashboard is up and running! Instructors can now go through the entire process of setting up a course, designing a Wikipedia assignment, and keeping up with students’ activity — all from dashboard.wikiedu.org. Until now, our systems for setting up and keeping track of Wikipedia classroom assignments have been … Continued
One of the things we’ve learned about Wikipedia course assignments is that class size makes a difference. Because Wikipedia writing assignments are different from traditional essays and research papers, in-class discussions of the writing and research process are important to keep student editors aligned with Wikipedia’s rules and conventions. We’ve found that even with experienced … Continued
Of the multitude of Wikipedia sins an editor could commit, plagiarism is among the gravest. False authorship strikes at the heart of Wikipedia as a freely licensed resource, built line by line from the voluntary contributions of legions of good samaritans. And while our student editors commit plagiarism less often than other newcomers, it’s still a … Continued
The Wiki Ed Dashboard is at the center of our technology work. Since March, I’ve been working with our development partner WINTR on transforming http://dashboard.wikiedu.org from a straightforward course monitoring tool into something much more — a complete platform for creating, running, and monitoring Wikipedia course projects (traditional courses as well as other projects, such as … Continued
Today, Wiki Education Foundation is officially releasing version 1.0 of the WikiEdu Dashboard: http://dashboard.wikiedu.org. The Dashboard is a new system for keeping track of the courses participating in our programs. This tool, built in collaboration with our digital creative partner WINTR, gives us a clearer window into the progress of student editors. The Dashboard presents … Continued