User:LiAnna (Wiki Ed)/Signpost Response December 2014

Response to Chris Troutman's Signpost Op-Ed
Chris has been a great volunteer, and one who has done tremendous work with students and staff. I agree with Chris that in-person support makes Wikipedia editing more approachable and understandable. And I agree that in an ideal world, classes would function like the ones Chris has supported so well, where an active Campus Ambassador engages the instructor and student editors, and Wikipedia gets more good content in areas where we have content gaps. As my colleague wrote in the email she sent to Chris alerting him to the shift we're making to the support structure for Wiki Ed-supported classes,"If we could copy and paste you into every university, there would be no need for the changes."

The problem is the ideal world isn't reality; we supported 98 classes last term, and only a handful had active Ambassadors like Chris. Community members rightly objected when course pages weren't filled out and when students edited medical topics without understanding WP:MEDRS. Both of these objections are things Wiki Ed staff should have been able to head off, but we didn't, because our processes didn't work well. Thus we need to make structural changes to ensure courses follow our best practices, which are based on our experience of working with more than 600 classes over the last four and a half years.

The old model was a one-size-fits-all "Ambassador" role, where the volunteer was supposed to have a variety of skills, from onboarding instructors to teaching students how to edit, to giving feedback on student work, to wikifying and adding images to articles, to serving as the liaison between the editing community and the class. While some volunteers, like Chris, were great at all of these roles, few had the interest to do all of them, and most were really interested in Wikipedia's content. That meant courses fell through the cracks, weren't following our best practices, and led to problematic student edits on Wikipedia — and the Ambassador unfairly became the recipient of blame for what went wrong. At the end of the day, that's not okay: Wiki Ed's goal is to improve content on Wikipedia, and we need to make sure our structure and processes work toward making sure all courses are having a positive impact on Wikipedia.

The new model makes Wiki Ed staff accountable for the non-content pieces. We will be onboarding instructors, so we can be sure that all assignments meet our current understanding of best practices. We will be responsible for sending students through our online training, so we know students are getting an overview of how to edit and important policies. We will be in contact with instructors so we can alert them quickly if there are problems. We will be the ones the community holds accountable for fixing problems, so volunteers don't feel blamed when things go wrong. Structural problems are ours to fix, and one way we can do that is to take responsibility for ensuring volunteers, then, are free to do the specific content-related task they like most: copyediting, wikifying, checking sources, giving feedback, etc. (although staff will be also helping out with the tasks as well). You can see these task-based categories here: Education program/Tasks. This also means any Wikipedia editor — not just those approved "Ambassadors" — can help out with student articles, making the entire process more Wikipedia-like.

That doesn't mean, though, that the Ambassador Program is going away. For several years, Ambassador applications have been processed by community members on the Education noticeboard; they will continue to be. The discussion about the userright seems to be leading to enacting what was initially planned, to enable the Education Program Extension (and thus the userright) to be used for a variety of purposes. And, as we communicated to Chris and the other still-active Ambassadors, we encourage them to continue supporting classes as they have in the past; the major change here is that we want Wiki Ed staff to oversee the non-content elements to the class, so we can ensure the course is following our best practices, and we are held accountable for any problems. We believe this will result in a better experience for everyone: instructors, volunteers, student editors, and the general Wikipedia editing community.

The suggestion that Wiki Ed will be restricting course participation, banning students or instructors, or mass-reverting their edits, is simply not true. Our goal isn't to ban student editors; on the contrary, our goal is to make sure what students are asked to do will actually help Wikipedia, and that the student editors are taught enough about Wikipedia policies to understand how to contribute effectively. Do we want to discourage 1,000-student classes? Yes. Do we want to discourage instructors who want students to write analytical essays on Wikipedia? Yes. And we can do that best by being responsible for onboarding those classes, when we can call a professor and say, "As a Wiki Education Foundation staff member with experience supporting 600 classes, your assignment will harm Wikipedia. But here's an alternative you could consider that would still achieve your learning objectives and actually help Wikipedia." In no way do we want to end the program; instead, we want to make sure the classes that are editing are filling Wikipedia's content gaps with high-quality content. And we think the best way to do that is through this process change.